Advice on processing for printing

[tcdev]

Hi,

I've had absolutely no time lately (newborn) for photography, and sadly that has also meant little time for the forums. I try to contribute as much as possible, but admit it hasn't been a lot in the last few months. In saying that, I'm a little sheepish in asking for advice, but I'm on a time limit...

...you see I've got a photo here that I'd like to get framed in one of those cheap deals that my wife signed up for on the net a few months ago. I'm not expecting super-high quality, it's more of a test-run to see how it turns out. I've never printed any of my photos before, so it'll be an interesting experiment...

Anyway, here's the original OOC...

Zion Sunset_Panorama1.jpg

I've had a bit of a play around with it, adjusting shadows, brightness, contrast and saturation here...

Zion Sunset_Panorama2.jpg

Do you think this would be more suitable to print? Is there anything (else) I need to look at before committing to the print process?

Many thanks in advance!

[ricktas]

Impossible to answer that from a 1000 pixel wide photo on the net. It looks good, but we cannot really see the detail at this resolution to say yay or nay.

Some points.

* Make sure you give them the highest quality file you can. If they can take TIFF etc use that, rather than JPG.
* Slightly, and I mean slightly, over-sharpen your photo. Printing ink tends to 'bleed' just a fraction and by over-sharpening you counter that and get a crisper result.
* Talk to the printer, find out as much about what they need to produce the highest quality result. (do they do any processing on the photos prior to print, and if so, what? you need to know that)

On my screen your print ready version looks punchy, good luck getting the print.

[tcdev]

Thanks Rick! I guessed that it should be slightly "over-done" - hence the push on saturation - and I'll give the sharpness a tweak. I suspect the end result will vary from printer to printer though... I've had some pretty ordinary results a few years ago from those super-cheap photo print offers (long before I got interested in photography), and more recently on a cheap photo book.

This one will be a 1m x 50cm print...

[Film Street]

Be careful with over saturating. You may end up with colour banding in the print.

[fess67]

All I can offer is I have heard that for printing make sure you are at 300 dpi.