file format - Printing from .tiff

[thephotoroom]

I recently stitched together a panoramic of a canyon in TX and want to print it. It was shot in raw, 7 exposures, converted into CS5 and saved as a tiff. I want to print this poster size, like 4'X1.5'. Where can I get a .tiff printed? The usual places I've gotten my jpegs through only deal with jpegs.

At what size would I start changing over to tiffs for printing? Is there a definite noticeable difference in prints larger than 14X11? 24X20?

thanks.

 

[KmH]

It is virtually impossible for a human to see the difference between a print made from a TIFF file, and a print of the same image made from a JPEG file, regardless the size of the print.

What kind of print were you going to have made? A C-print? A Giclée? Offset?

 

[thephotoroom]

havent thought of what type of print. Never occurred to me. I googled those you mentioned and I guess the C print? Those seem to be what I have gotten in the past unbeknownst to me.

I get my prints through mpix and liked them so far. I've ordered large prints up to 30X36 and they looked fine from a jpeg.

I was just curious what the people here thought about printing from tiffs. I've searched around and havent found any "rules" about it so I thought I'd drop a line here cause the print I want is gonna be like 4-5 feet long.

 

[ann]

well i print from tiff files,because i save to tiff and i print my own .

check some commerical labs, but Keith would not steer you wrong.

 

[KmH]

Commercial labs don't like how big TIFF files are, since they get several thousand people a day uploading files and TIFFs eat up storage capacity quickly.

Mpix prints are C-prints (Kodak Emdura Professional papers), but their press products aren't. Before they updated their web site Mpix said thay wanted JPEGs in the sRGB color space, but with no embedded color profile.

Print labs have RIP software (Raster Image Processing) that comes with their mega $$$$$$$$ printing machines.

4 feet by 1.5 feet is 48" by 18".

 

[Garbz]

For the most part you are hard pressed to notice a difference in an image that is saved at Q9 (~80%) quality. Even the professional labs I've dealt with suggest this saving method, but also say to use it only as a guide. Images that are dark / blue suffer the most from JPEG compression so you have something to gain by upping the quality to max in these cases.

Successive edits and saving of JPEG is not recommended as you lose quality with each save and after 5-10 saves the image starts looking notably bad, however JPEG as an end product is actually quite ok.

 

[thephotoroom]

hmm. All interesting stuff.
To clarify,
Q9? When photoshop prompts for a grade of JPEG quality I think highest is 12, I've always saved at max. IS that the Q'X"?
Jpegs get trashy after opening and closing?

Since the pic is a landscape view of red rock canyons with small green shrubs and blue sky, TIFF wont really gain me much advantage then...

Thanks for all the input.

 

[Garbz]

Yes that's what I mean by Q but as I said it's entirely image dependant. An all blue image gets trashed quite a bit more than a yellow picture by the JPEG compression algorithm due to the eye's insensitivity to changes in blue.

JPEG is a lossy algorithm it will get trashed if you repeatedly Open, Save, and Close an image.