Best way to save photos for printing.

[IggySpringer]

I'm wondering whats the best way to save photos from Lightroom to get the best quality prints? I see a few things once I begin to export from Lightroom such as Image Sizing, Output Sharpening, File Settings etc. Typically I don't mess with the settings at all but I'm about to start shooting weddings the next few weeks and what the best file qualities once I take the disk to the store to print. What settings do I tweak a bit, if any at all to get the best quality files to print?

And I'm assuming is best to shoot weddings RAW, right?

 

[kathyt]

FOR PRINT....I save my images at full resolution, 300 dpi, quality 10, sharpen for matte paper, including all metadata, and yes I shoot weddings in RAW.

 

[IggySpringer]

FOR PRINT....I save my images at full resolution, 300 dpi, quality 10, sharpen for matte paper, including all metadata, and yes I shoot weddings in RAW.

Thanks a lot!!!
Did you mean quality 100 instead of 10?

 

[jamesbjenkins]

How big are you typically printing? For normal prints, you can easily get away with 85% quality. Unless you're printing larger than 16x20" there's no reason to go larger than that. At 100%, it's like saving a JPG in Photoshop at quality 12. Much larger file sizes.

Sharpen for matte paper.

 

[IggySpringer]

How big are you typically printing? For normal prints, you can easily get away with 85% quality. Unless you're printing larger than 16x20" there's no reason to go larger than that. At 100%, it's like saving a JPG in Photoshop at quality 12. Much larger file sizes.

Sharpen for matte paper.

The biggest size will be 8x10

 

[KmH]

In Lightroom neither the Export nor Print Job panels has DPI as an option. PPI is the only choice.
DPI (Dots Per Inch) and PPI (Pixels Per Inch) are not the same thing and the terms are not interchang4eable.
DPI only applies to output devices. Digital images are input files and PPI applies to them, but only for prints. For electronic display PPI is meaningless.

Print resolution depends on pixel dimensions (image resolution, not to be confused with print resolution), image content, image quality, print substrate, and print type.

Making prints is just about as complex and technical a subject as doing photography is.
The type of print - chromogenic, inkjet, off-set print - and the substrate that will be used factor in. You don't need as much image resolution for a canvas print as you do for a print on glossy resin-coated paper.
In addition, image content and edge frequency are variables that affect which sharpening techniques, and amounts, one might use.

I recommend reading 3 books -
For Sharpening -Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition)

For preparing the master image - The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop

Considerations for printing, and just recently released - The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing