Preparing images for printing

[Gel]

Hi folks, looking for advice on printing.

From two sides really.

Are there any special requirements I need to actuate when preparing a clients images for printing, such as dpi in photoshop. All of my images from the camera are 240dpi yet when I had some business cards made up the company required the images to be in CMYK and 300dpi, whereas my images are Srgb as standard.

Further, should I want to print my own, what's recommended printer and papers (generally) used? I was pointed towards Epson, yet my experience albeit 8 years ago with Epsons are pretty bad compared to HP (My printers been running 8 years straight now).

I was aiming for A3 as a minimum size.

Thanks for any advice,
Gel

 

[Chappers]

The dpi in Photoshop can be a bit of a Red Herring. It simply looks at the pixel dimensions and divides that by the dpi to give you the image size. Some print companies,and magazines use this as a guide to ensure the image is large enough for their requirements. It is a bit crude, but it keeps the designers happy!!

As far as supplying the images as CMYK, well that's a real can of worms. CMYK is not a defined standard as sRGB and Adobe RGB. Photoshop will give you some generic conversions, but which do you use, SWOP which is a US standard and if not which of the others.

Converting from RGB to CMYK needs to take into account a whole raft of factors, The Press, the plates, the ink and the paper. Most repro houes have their own conversion and prefer images in one of the standard RGB mode, sRGB or AdobeRGB.

For business cards it probably doesn't matter too much, but for quality I'd check with the printer which flavour of CMYK he would like.

For other work I'd send the files as Adobe RGB and let the repro house do the conversions. That's the way I send all my images that go to print.

The choice of printer for printing your own work is something you need to decide for yourself. I've got three Epson printers and had no problems with them at all ( No blocked nozzles etc.) .Papers well that's a personal choice. I've settled on Ilford Galerie but there are lots of suppliers out there. Some papers work better with dye inks rather than pigmented. Not all manufacturers seem to differentiate between the two technologies. Worth watching out for

 

[Chaz Photos]

If your work is going to a printer that prints offset ink printing they will need CMYK all you have to do is in photoshop go to Mode and select CMYK it that easy.
As for printer Canon have proven to me to be the best
As for papers this is a personl think but I use PermaJet as they have a good range of finishes and will also provide bespoke profiles for your printer.
DPI is only got anything to do with printing it has no effect on your image it only use to set the size at time of printing. i.e. dived the number of pixels into this number and you get your size.
The same file can be made to print different size if you print at different DPI. so set it at 300 and you will see what size you can print your image at.

 

[photon]

The software for uploading to a lab may downsize and sharpen, outside your control. No matter how accurately you crop and size, you'll only get all you see if have `em printed with borders.

 

[Gel]

Thanks for the help with all this. It's a bit new for me but I'd rather be ready when a client asks me than to look unprofessional and shrug my shoulders!

Does printing at home work out better than the labs cost wise and finally, are clients happy with A4 and A3 sizes or do they ask for other sizes a lot?

 

[Chappers]

Print sizes can vary from client to client. It also depends on the type of work you are doing.
you could be asked for A4 ,8 x 10, 5x7 all manner of sizes.

When buying a printer, decide what the most popular maximum size print you will do. If you only get asked for the odd print larger than A4 it's not much point in spending £500 on an A3 printer. It's cheaper to contract it out.

 

[Craikeybaby]

I would say that printing with a lab is more cost efficient, the per print price may be similar, but the set up costs are higher for printing at home, then you have got all of the set up too, getting the profiles correct etc.

For preparing files check with the printer what dpi they need (usually 300), then resize the image so that it is the correct size and shape, as A sizes. 5x7 and 12x8 are all different shapes and sharpen as necessary.

 

[benners]

not quite sure how much this helps (!) but fond this info when looking through the help section on Photobox.co.uk:

Why is it that my images edited in PhotoShop producer darker prints than un-edited images?

Most jpeg images contain some called an EXIF header. This is information about the camera used to take the picture and exposure settings at the time. This EXIF information is used by our Fuji Frontiers to enhance images and to compensate for any underexposure on the camera. Generally, you will get brighter punchier prints if the EXIF information is still there.

Some older photo editing packages can strip out this EXIF information, meaning that our Frontiers can't enhance the image.

Also the act of editing an image at all in PhotoShop, even newer versions, causes the Frontier enhancement to be turned off. Fuji assume that the image has been edited to be how you want it printed and so won't change it any further.

If you are in doubt please upload your unedited images to get the best possible printed results.

What's a CMYK file?

CMYK means Cyan Magenta Yellow Black. This type of colour space is for ink jet printers as those are the colour inks used to print. RGB is Red Green and Blue; these are the colours that light is made of, and we use light to expose your print onto light sensitive paper before passing it through a wet developing process. You should make sure that your images are saved as RGB before uploading them.