Questions on the Printing

[george013]

I am hopeful that I will not have to do any printing myself. I was using a printer who used Tiff files but he has disappeared off of the face of the earth. And I've learned that it seems to be impossible to find any printers who print from Tiff files. So far I know of just one place and it would involve a 2-3 hour bus ride from my home (and back again) just to pick up a few prints. It seems that everyone (professional printing places) accept only jpeg files so that will just have to do for now.

A printer doesn't print TIFF or JPG. It prints a raster based image. If your software displays an image on your screen and has a print-buttom, than you can print it. If you can put a memorycard in the printer, than that piece of software is in the printer.
I think a reason that why an online printservice is not happy with TIFF will be the size.
From my disk. JPG, 3613x2419pixels, JPEG compression 90, disksize 2.140kB. When this should be an 16 bits, is 2 Byte, TIFF, them the image itself would be 3613x2419x3x2=52439.082kB. More than 24x so big.
First figure out if you can see a difference between JPG and TIFF.

I don't know anything of colours.

George

[Mike Buckley]

Great post, Manfred! Very nice of you to take time from your vacation to write it.

Printing is really not all that difficult or complex.

When I read the typical stuff on the Internet, I'm convinced that a lot of people earn a living or at least appeal to their own ego by making things seem complex when they aren't. If they kept things to the simplicity that actually is the case, they wouldn't have anything to write.

It's so easy to understand why people who first broach the topic get so easily confused.

[george013]

Great post, Manfred! Very nice of you to take time from your vacation to write it.



When I read the typical stuff on the Internet, I'm convinced that a lot of people earn a living or at least appeal to their own ego by making things seem complex when they aren't. If they kept things to the simplicity that actually is the case, they wouldn't have anything to write.

It's so easy to understand why people who first broach the topic get so easily confused.

Her first sentence of her openings post.

I'm trying to gain a better understanding of the techs behind printing a quality image because I'm starting to offer a few of my prints for sale and even though I send them out to a printer to take care of the details I feel that I need to have a better understanding of the subject to ensure a quality print.

[Mike Buckley]

I'm not sure I understand the point you are making, George. If you are thinking that Christina is trying to understand the important details pertaining to printing and is understandably becoming confused thanks to the overly complex stuff written about the topic on the Internet, you and I agree.

[george013]

For the first part we agree. Not for the second part. It's not a matter of confusion but a lack of knowledge where she wants to get rid off. A more structured approach will help. Reading your posts you are able to do it.
George

[Mike Buckley]

A more structured approach will help.

Completely agreed.

[Brownbear]

Thank you to all for your helpful replies.

Mike... Thanks for the reference links for printing and shipping, and your explanation about how square prints are created. The printers I've spoken to also differ in their opinions and advice.

George... Thank you for your explanation on Tiffs/jpegs. Very helpful to know.

Manfred... Thanks a million for your detailed explanation addressing each of my questions. Very helpful and informative, and easy to understand. And I'm certain that your reply will be very helpful to many folks. Truly appreciated! Thank you for taking the time from your vacation.... that's very kind of you and very special.

[Manfred M]

Manfred... Thanks a million for your detailed explanation addressing each of my questions. Very helpful and informative, and easy to understand. And I'm certain that your reply will be very helpful to many folks. Truly appreciated! Thank you for taking the time from your vacation.... that's very kind of you and very special.

Christina - I think you will find that this is no more difficult or mysterious than many other aspects of photography.

The issue is the "experts" who tend to present what is actually a fairly simple process as something that is "difficult". Honestly, once you figure this out you will wonder why you thought it was so difficult to begin with.

Good luck and have fun!

P.S. We had a down day on our vacation and a fairly decent internet connection (for a change) so I had a chance to catch up on a few things.

Mnafred

[george013]

Thank you to all for your helpful replies.
George... Thank you for your explanation on Tiffs/jpegs. Very helpful to know.

You missed the most important file, the file that's in memory. I called that the raster file, or work file, or memory file. It doesn't have an official name, not that I know off. That's the file that's shown on the monitor, that's the file you send to the printer, that's the file you save to disk with or without compression, that's the file you edit.
I think things are becoming much easier to understand when you are more aware of that file. Not only with printing. Just think of the discussion of comparing a RAW and a JPG file from the same camera. You don't compare those files but the raster files created out of the disk-files.
George

[Brownbear]

Hi George,

Thank you for taking the time to share and explain in further detail and enhance my understanding of the topic. Truly appreciated!

You missed the most important file, the file that's in memory. I called that the raster file, or work file, or memory file. It doesn't have an official name, not that I know off. That's the file that's shown on the monitor, that's the file you send to the printer, that's the file you save to disk with or without compression, that's the file you edit.
I think things are becoming much easier to understand when you are more aware of that file. Not only with printing. Just think of the discussion of comparing a RAW and a JPG file from the same camera. You don't compare those files but the raster files created out of the disk-files.
George