Questions on the Printing

[Brownbear]

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.

As usual I've let my questions build up. Reading and hearing differing opinions (from printers) on the topic has confused the matter.

Firstly...

Can anyone recommend a book and/or link that addresses the basics of printing at a beginner level.

My questions...

1. Is it true that for a high quality print one must use a Tiff file, and that quality jpegs will only suffice for small prints?

2. Is it true that one should use the Pro Photo colour space when editing an image? And then convert the image to sRGB or Adobe RGB if using a jpeg for printing? If yes, I don't understand why because if I can only see the sRGB colour space on my screen - would not changing the colour space of the image to be printed change the mood and colours of the image, ie; the print might look very different from my intent.

3. Is it the case that set white and black points be different for printing than for presentation on the web?

4. I don't understand the relationship between the maximum size of a quality print and the size of the image in terms of Megapixels/Resolution/Pixels per inch.

From the tutorial https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...mera-pixel.htm on CnC

# of Megapixels Maximum 3:2 Print Size

at 300 PPI: at 200 PPI:

2 5.8" x 3.8" 8.7" x 5.8"
3 7.1" x 4.7" 10.6" x 7.1"
4 8.2" x 5.4" 12.2" x 8.2"
5 9.1" x 6.1" 13.7" x 9.1"
6 10.0" x 6.7" 15.0" x 10.0"
8 11.5" x 7.7" 17.3" x 11.5"
12 14.1" x 9.4" 21.2" x 14.1"
16 16.3" x 10.9" 24.5" x 16.3"
22 19.1" x 12.8" 28.7" x 19.1"

I understand that one can print a larger size print using a lower resolution (? terminology) of 200 PPI but is this recommended?

5. I have also read a few things relating the size of the image that one can print say for my Nikon D7100 at 4000 pixels X 6000 pixels means one can print an image 40 inches X 60 inches at 300 ppi... This seems to be related to the MB of an image? If yes, can anyone explain this in simple terms?

Yet, if I use this calculator and the specs from my camera (24 mp/6000x4000/300) it gives me a result which states I can print an image size of just 20" x 13.3" . However, I have an image from my Nikon D80 (less MP) printed on canvas (2' x 3') on my wall and it looks just fine?

http://tiporama.com/tools/pixels_inches.html

6. Printing with respect to the ISO used.

I've read that if I use an ISO of 1600 the maximum print size I may use is 13" X 19", and for an ISO of 3200 that it is 11"x14". (sorry, metric measurements don't seem to be commonly used so inches it is)

However, if I don't see any noise in the image at full size is the above still true? ie; the colours will be blah/flat because of the use of high ISOs.


I realize that this is a lot of questions to ask, and that they may be too complex to address... Therefore I will be very happy just to receive a good book/internet resource recommendation just so I may gain a better understanding of the subject matter.

Thank you.

[Shadowman]

Jeff Schewe's The Digital Print on Kindle. Recommended by Richard Lundberg

Uwe Steinmueller and Juergen Gulbins "Fine Art printing for Photographers" Recommended by me.

[Shadowman]

Post #13 gave a brief explanation of ppi/print sizes.

Crop Frame D5200-24 MP

There are also quite a few threads on this forum related to your line of questioning, most started by me.

[Mike Buckley]

Anyone wanna take my bet that this becomes a very "interesting" and long thread?

[Mike Buckley]

I'll handle just one topic -- print size.

No matter what you read online, in books or even in post-processing software text, think "pixels per inch" when relating to electronic files and think "dots per inch" when relating to a print. You'll see lots of confusion over this caused by the seemingly constant misuse of the terminology including really knowledgeable people here at CiC who forget to be precise about the distinction between pixels and dots. If you haven't already guessed, this is a pet peeve of mine that sends me out of control.

Neither pixels nor dots have a fixed size. (Sort of like my ever-changing waist line, otherwise known as a waste line.) Seriously, just as pencils, sheets of paper and wine glasses come in different sizes, the same is true of pixels and dots. You can cram as many or few as you want into a given dimension. Just in case you were thinking otherwise (a lot of people do), it's helpful to have that background knowledge.

Assume you've got an electronic file that is 4000 pixels by 6000 pixels. How large can you print it assuming 200 dots per inch? Simply divide 4000 by 200 and the result is 20 inches. So, you also now realize that the other dimension will be 30 inches (6000 divided by 200 = 30).

How large can you print the same electronic file assuming 150 dots per inch? 4000 divided by 150 = 26.67 inches. 6000 divided by 150 = 40 inches.

Your post-processing software will probably report those numbers, allowing you to verify both the concept and the math. (Mine does.)

You might have noticed the trend that the more dots per inch, the smaller the print will be. The less dots per inch, the larger the print will be.

However, there is a point when configuring too few dots per inch that the print will not look good. I always try to print at 200 dots per inch because that is really safe. In almost all situations, 150 dots per inch will be quite fine. Actually, I've never seen a print made at 150 dots per inch that didn't look good and that included the prints made in the print shop that used to be my employer.

[Brownbear]

John,

Thank you for the book recommendations. Truly appreciated. I will check them out. I have reviewed the printing threads and tutorials but at this point in time it is information overload. ie; all the information and terminology is akin to Calculus 101. And the advice and recommendations I have received from printers conflicts.

Mike... I hope it is interesting and informative to all, and easy enough for beginners to understand.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Mike! Easy to understand and apply. I am printing your reply for reference.

I'll handle just one topic -- print size.

No matter what you read online, in books or even in post-processing software text, think "pixels per inch" when relating to electronic files and think "dots per inch" when relating to a print. You'll see lots of confusion over this caused by the seemingly constant misuse of the terminology including really knowledgeable people here at CiC who forget to be precise about the distinction between pixels and dots. If you haven't already guessed, this is a pet peeve of mine that sends me out of control.

Neither pixels nor dots have a fixed size. (Sort of like my ever-changing waist line, otherwise known as a waste line.) Seriously, just as pencils, sheets of paper and wine glasses come in different sizes, the same is true of pixels and dots. Just in case you were thinking otherwise (a lot of people do), it's helpful to have that background knowledge.

Assume you've got an electronic file that is 4000 pixels by 6000 pixels. How large can you print it assuming 200 dots per inch? Simply divide 4000 by 200 and the result is 20 inches. So, you also now realize that the other dimension will be 30 inches (6000 divided by 200 = 30).

How large can you print the same electronic file assuming 150 dots per inch? 4000 divided by 150 = 26.67 inches. 6000 divided by 150 = 40 inches.

You might have noticed the trend that the more dots per inch, the smaller the print size will be. The less dots per inch, the larger the print fill will be.

However, there is a point when configuring too few dots per inch that the print will not look good. I always try to print at 200 dots per inch because that is really safe. In almost all situations, 150 dots per inch will be quite fine. Actually, I've never seen a print made at 150 dots per inch that didn't look good and that included the prints made in the print shop that used to be my employer.

[Polar01]

Christina: I can not answer all your questions, but will try some of them. The two books John suggested are very good indeed.
Question #1 answer no, it is just most out side printers can not use any other file formats that Tiff or j-peg. I print inhouse with an 17" wide Epson 4900 inkjet printer, so if I can see the file on my system I can print it. As for the image, say you shot in raw and when finished in your post production program you say saved as a Photoshop psd file to keep a working file. now you save that file again by "save as" now a jpeg at best quality. You should have little or no problem producing a say 16" x 24" image or larger. Now if you started out with a 12 or 16 MP image no as likely but you shoot with a 24MP camera.
I feel that the most important place to start is to make sure that you monitor has an up to date colour profile applied to it.
That is all I am going to do for now as you have asked a lot of questions and sometimes it take time to wrap your head around the answers, I know that I do.

Cheers: Allan

[Mike Buckley]

Christina,

I edited my post after you read it. If you're really going to print it for future use, print the edited version.

[JR1]

WOW are you over thinking everything (in MY opinion)

I shoot JPG only, weddings, sports etc, see my site

I shoot at whatever ISO is called for at the time.

The ONLY other software I use is NOISWARE when needed

https://www.imagenomic.com/nw.aspx

I take the image shot into photoshop, edit and simply print A3+, A3 or A4, PPI NO, color space TIFF, blimy I would spend more time in photoshop than making money

And I print on site as needed

[Brownbear]

Allan,

Thank you kindly for addressing my question about printing from jpegs or Tiff files. My monitor is calibrated for colour space.

Jeremy,

Thank you for sharing. Certainly reassuring to hear. Yes, I'm likely over thinking everything but only in order to gain a better understanding of the subject so I can make informed decisions. (akin to taking one's car into a mechanic for repairs) I'm of the mind that there must be a fine art to printing as the pricing for the service certainly varies a lot with different printers.

Quite the print shop set up you have there.

[george013]

Every image will be converted to a raster image in memory. The image is builded up from pixels in columns and rows. That's what you see on the monitor or sending to the printer.

JPG and TIFF are disk-files of a raster-image. TIFF is saving the image pixel by pixel and mostly 16bit deep, but also 8-bit. JPG is 8-bit and building blocks which are lossy compressed, so losing detail.
If you want quality, especial with large prints, go for TIFF, generated from the RAW-file. Saving a JPG as TIFF will let you keep the compression-faults.

George

[Brownbear]

Thank you George. Appreciated.

I think I'm going to have an image printed large size from the jpeg and a tiff (from raw) to see if I can see the difference.

Every image will be converted to a raster image in memory. The image is builded up from pixels in columns and rows. That's what you see on the monitor or sending to the printer.

JPG and TIFF are disk-files of a raster-image. TIFF is saving the image pixel by pixel and mostly 16bit deep, but also 8-bit. JPG is 8-bit and building blocks which are lossy compressed, so losing detail.
If you want quality, especial with large prints, go for TIFF, generated from the RAW-file. Saving a JPG as TIFF will let you keep the compression-faults.

George

[george013]

Thank you George. Appreciated.

I think I'm going to have an image printed large size from the jpeg and a tiff (from raw) to see if I can see the difference.

Theoretical you should see that on a screen too.
Shoot RAW. If you want, edit the picture and than do twice a save as: one as a JPG and one as a TIFF. Now you have the same picture in 2 different file formats. The trick is now to view them simultaneous. With 2 screens or 2 windows. Or open a program twice. I use IView for that. Zoom 100% and take care that the same part of the image is shown. Than switch between the 2 and look for the differnces. Or minimize the screen so that the 2 programs are next to each other.

George

[Brownbear]

Thank you George. Will do!

Theoretical you should see that on a screen too.
Shoot RAW. If you want, edit the picture and than do twice a save as: one as a JPG and one as a TIFF. Now you have the same picture in 2 different file formats. The trick is now to view them simultaneous. With 2 screens or 2 windows. Or open a program twice. I use IView for that. Zoom 100% and take care that the same part of the image is shown. Than switch between the 2 and look for the differnces. Or minimize the screen so that the 2 programs are next to each other.

George

[Howker]

Yes this will be a long & convoluted thread - its about Printing. You should start at the beginning as you say by trying to understand color space, dpi etc etc. BUt for me it all start by calibrating the monitor and it need to be the one you will print from. Then you calibrate your printer. Now at least wysiwyg.
Search the Spyder web site. I'm not particularity recommending their product but they have been at calibration for along time & there is much info & links. BTW if you don't want to be tracked use DuckDuckgo as you search engine.

[Brownbear]

Hi Tom,

Thank you for advising. I should've stated in my original post that I have a calibrated monitor and I use the Spyder calibrator, recommended by members here. (thanks to all)

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.



Add on just to share what I learned from one printing place on the reason why they ask for the Pro Photo Colour Space...

A wide-gamut color space is needed to prevent gamut issues when printing images. Colour settings such as sRGB or Adobe RGB are limited in range. ProPhoto RGB has a fairly wide range gamut which allows the printer to find the closest colour to your image.

I find the above confusing as I've learned that the best place to set your white balance/colours are in the raw image. (with respect to quality) If I take my Tiff or PSD file and change to the photo space to ProPhoto RGB I won't know how the colours of my printed image will appear. If I send a printer a jpeg file and they change the colours of the image might it effect the quality of my image? Why why do printers wish to be able to change the colours of an image sent to them for printing. ie; I will the colours as I wish when I send it out.

Add-On

It also appears that printers don't print square prints. ie; One sends an uncropped image in order to allow the printer to crop the image into the square format one wishes.

Thank you.

Note: I haven't purchased the recommended books yet, so I'm still in the dark about printing needs.

[Mike Buckley]

Christina,

You should be able to obtain a reasonable degree of quality control without having to go to the print facility. In other words, you should be able to send the electronic file and the printing company should be able to ship the print directly to you.

Most print companies provide at least a profile that you can use for soft proofing. Other methods are also used that emulate "closed loop" printing. Those processes give you all but custom controls.

Bay Photo offers square prints at about 15 sizes. Mpix.com offers square prints but only at 10" x 10" and 20" x 20". As an example, if you want a 16" x 16" print, you would send them a 16" x 20" file of which anything beyond the 16" x 16" area has no image data. They would print the 16" x 20" file on a 16" x 20" piece of paper and you or someone would then cut the paper down to 16" x 16".

[Manfred M]

Christina - you are really overthinking this by a lot. Printing is really not all that difficult or complex. I do a lot of my own printing, using my Epson 3880 StylusPro printer.

1. A print has far less dynamic range than your camera or your computer screen, so any print will have its tonal range compressed to something that is suitable for a print. I'd say you are really looking somewhere around 4 EV, versus the 5 to 6 EV on your screen versus the 12 EV (or more) that a modern camera can capture. Glossy paper has a higher dynamic range than matt "pro" art papers.

2. A high-end pro printer probably can only reproduce some 500,000 or so distinct colours. Printer manufacturers are quite cagey about what the printers can really reproduce, but let's face it, you are essentially creating colours by using a couple of magenta cartridges, a couple of cyan cartridges, a yellow and number of grays and blacks if you are using a high end Epson printer. Varying the dot size is really how the various shades are produced.

3. Printer gamut is probably closer to AdobeRGB than ProPhoto (at least that is what Adobe had in mind when they developed that colour space). I have never run into a commercial printer that uses that colour space. Most use sRGB and a few can handle AdobeRGB. I personally do my edits using the ProPhoto colour space on a wide gamut screen and then convert to AdobeRGB before printing. This seems to work for me. As I print my own, I never bother converting to TIFF or jpeg, but print directly from my Photoshop PSD files.

4. At some time in the past, there may have been an advantage by preparing images for printing using the native printer resolution (360 dpi for Epson and 300 dpi for HP and Canon), but the printer software and drivers have become so sophisticated that I really have not seen any difference in print quality when I use something other than native resolution.

5. A commercial photo printer should NEVER change the colours in your image. If they do, find a different printer. Once you find one you like, get their colour profile and work with it, You will likely have a bit of back and forth until you get prints that match your needs from a light / dark standpoint. Unfortunately, a colour managed workflow, while ensuring that the colours are right does not handle this other key aspect of printing. We tend to run our screens too bright (and in fact I can’t turn my screen brightness down far enough to match my printing needs), so I have to compensate in post. Remember that a computer screen is a transmitted light, additive RGB device and a print is a reflected light, CMYK subtractive output. I've gotten some wonderful images from jpegs using a commercial photo printer, and frankly there is only one time (image with brilliant reds, blues and greens) where I had to go to something other than jpeg / sRGB to get a decent colour print.

6. Remember that the paper stock is what determines you whites. I find that I adjust my white point to around 245 – 250 range, so that the printer deposits some ink when I have specular highlights in the image. Otherwise, when you look at the print from an angle you get strange looking shiny spots that look a bit strange. I also do this at the black end and ensure that true blacks are in the 5 to 10 range.

[Manfred M]

Christina - you are really overthinking this by a lot. Printing is really not all that difficult or complex. I do a lot of my own printing, using my Epson 3880 StylusPro printer.

1. A print has far less dynamic range than your camera or your computer screen, so any print will have its tonal range compressed to something that is suitable for a print. I'd say you are really looking somewhere around 4 EV, versus the 5 to 6 EV on your screen versus the 12 EV (or more) that a modern camera can capture. Glossy paper has a higher dynamic range than matt "pro" art papers.

2. A high-end pro printer probably can only reproduce some 500,000 or so distinct colours. Printer manufacturers are quite cagey about what the printers can really reproduce, but let's face it, you are essentially creating colours by using a couple of magenta cartridges, a couple of cyan cartridges, a yellow and number of grays and blacks if you are using a high end Epson printer. Varying the dot size is really how the various shades are produced.

3. Printer gamut is probably closer to AdobeRGB than ProPhoto (at least that is what Adobe had in mind when they developed that colour space). I have never run into a commercial printer that uses that colour space. Most use sRGB and a few can handle AdobeRGB. I personally do my edits using the ProPhoto colour space on a wide gamut screen and then convert to AdobeRGB before printing. This seems to work for me. As I print my own, I never bother converting to TIFF or jpeg, but print directly from my Photoshop PSD files.

4. At some time in the past, there may have been an advantage by preparing images for printing using the native printer resolution (360 dpi for Epson and 300 dpi for HP and Canon), but the printer software and drivers have become so sophisticated that I really have not seen any difference in print quality when I use something other than native resolution.

5. A commercial photo printer should NEVER change the colours in your image. If they do, find a different printer. Once you find one you like, get their colour profile and work with it, You will likely have a bit of back and forth until you get prints that match your needs from a light / dark standpoint. Unfortunately, a colour managed workflow, while ensuring that the colours are right does not handle this other key aspect of printing. We tend to run our screens too bright (and in fact I can’t turn my screen brightness down far enough to match my printing needs), so I have to compensate in post. Remember that a computer screen is a transmitted light, additive RGB device and a print is a reflected light, CMYK subtractive output. I've gotten some wonderful images from jpegs using a commercial photo printer, and frankly there is only one time (image with brilliant reds, blues and greens) where I had to go to something other than jpeg / sRGB to get a decent colour print.

6. Remember that the paper stock is what determines you whites. I find that I adjust my white point to around 245 – 250 range, so that the printer deposits some ink when I have specular highlights in the image. Otherwise, when you look at the print from an angle you get strange looking shiny spots that look a bit strange. I also do this at the black end and ensure that true blacks are in the 5 to 10 range.