Formatting to print optimal picures

[kwatson73]

I am an amateur photographer, but I feel as if my work is print worthy. I mainly do children/family photos, and have had many families request cd's to print their pictures. I allowed one family to do so, and the pictures were grainy, and not how I viewed them on my computer! Are there settings on my computer or editing program that needs to be changed. I am saving in JPEG so that the photos may be printed.

 

[WayneF]

I am an amateur photographer, but I feel as if my work is print worthy. I mainly do children/family photos, and have had many families request cd's to print their pictures. I allowed one family to do so, and the pictures were grainy, and not how I viewed them on my computer! Are there settings on my computer or editing program that needs to be changed. I am saving in JPEG so that the photos may be printed.

Are the families having the images printed, or are they printing at home on their own printer?

How large are the prints?

How large are the images?

For printing, your image needs at least 200 pixels, better 300 pixels, for every inch of print dimension.

Saying, to print 8x10 inches needs an image size of about 2400x3000 pixels.

Saying, images resized small for email or monitor video viewing probably are not large enough to print well. It is complicated by not knowing what the family will do to the images before attempting to print them. But without knowing any details, nothing can be said.

 

[vintagesnaps]

I think quality control can be a problem when someone else prints your photos, as mentioned from a smaller or lower res image, or depending where/how they have them printed. Once you've given photos away I don't think that leaves you any control over how they end up being used.

 

[Derrel]

I would export the images as GOOD-sized .JPG images, at least 3,000 pixels on the long axis, and set to 300 or 360ppi, and of a size that's around 2.5 megabytes or MORE. I would also set the sharpening to HIGH in Lightroom, and to GLOSSY paper.

One thing that has helped me is when I make images for printing CD's, I include the User Use License information statement on the disc, but I also NEVER,ever mix the low-resolution or e-mail or web sized images with my PRINT discs. Many times what happens is a person with little experience will plunk a CD into a printing kiosk at WalMart or RiteAid or Sam's CLub or who knows where!!! and tell the machine to "print one copy of each image." If they happen to be printing off of an e-mail disc, with tiny 640x pixel wide images at 72ppi, the images will look awful.

In fact, I NAME my images prepared for printing with the word PRINT in the file name, in all-caps, as part of the name. As in D3X5997_PRINT.JPG, as well as D3x5997_PRINT_57.JPG if for example, there is a 5x7 crop version offered.

The PRINT CD needs to have a prominent PRINTING Images label on the front of it. And the e-mail and web CD needsto say LOW-RESOLUTION FILES.

 

[KmH]

I am an amateur photographer, but I feel as if my work is print worthy. I mainly do children/family photos, and have had many families request cd's to print their pictures. I allowed one family to do so, and the pictures were grainy, and not how I viewed them on my computer! Are there settings on my computer or editing program that needs to be changed. I am saving in JPEG so that the photos may be printed.

Many assume having high quality prints made is eazy-peezey.
It's not.

Digital images - do not and cannot have grain. They can have image noise, or they can be pixelated.
With JPEGs, what many think are pixels are in fact the borders of MCU's or Minimum Coded Units that are 8x8 px, 8x16 px, or 16x16 px blocks of pixels the JPEG file type makes to as 1 means of compressing the original Raw image file.

If the photographer doesn't know what needs to be done to a digital image file to get a high quality print made from it, don't expect the people in the photos to know what to do.

I would not set the print resolution (pixels per inch - ppi) as high as Derrel suggested unless you want to limit the size at which prints can be made.

3000 pixels on the long side (image resolution, not to be confused with print resolution) @ 300 ppi will make a 10" long side of the print (3000 px / 300 ppi = 10 inches)
At 360 ppi a 3000 px long side will print at 8.33 inches (3000 px / 360 ppi = 8.3333..... inches)

pixels / ppi = inches
pixels / inches = ppi
inches x ppi = pixels

Tutorials on Color Management & Printing

Fine Art Printing for Photographers: Exhibition Quality Prints with Inkjet Printers
The Digital Print: Preparing Images in Lightroom and Photoshop for Printing
The Digital Negative: Raw Image Processing in Lightroom, Camera Raw, and Photoshop