High Quality Enlargments from Digital images

TheSummercampKid · Mar 12, 2006

I have recently switched from film to digital and have not made many prints/enlargements from my digital images. I am looking to go as big as 16 X 20. I am looking for some advice for what if anything I should do with my images as far as digital processing (photoshop) before I send them off to the lab. How can I be assured that the pictures will look the same as they do on my screen? (I use a Canon 10D and shoot almost exclusively in RAW. I have RAW versions of each image and some I have converted to tiff and HQ jpegs.)

Azuth · Mar 13, 2006

http://www.creativepro.com/img/story/101504_PSimageres.pdf

This link may help.

cbay · Mar 13, 2006

Yes read that PDf that should help you out. I have enlarged my digital images to 20" x 30" in the past though, from my Canon 350D so you should be fine. I reccomend to use www.FOTO.co.uk aswell, it is so cheap and even though it comes from Germany it comes so quick within a few days of ordering.

Digital Matt · Mar 13, 2006

TheSummercampKid said:
I am looking for some advice for what if anything I should do with my images as far as digital processing (photoshop) before I send them off to the lab.

You should interpolate them to the desired size at 300 dpi before you send them.

Keep in mind that, if you haven't cropped it yet, a 10D image is 2:3, which would give you a 16x24. You'll have to crop it.

thebeginning · Mar 13, 2006

^yep. frusterating that you have to do that, though. I've printed a 16x24 from my 20d (I used mpix.com - I highly recommend them. Very fast and high quality prints) and it turned out wonderfully. not sure what interpolating is...I just used photoshop to change the image size to 16x24 at 300dpi. I was actually surprised with how well it turned out.

Alpha · Mar 13, 2006

If you take a digital photo on your computer and give it to a lab to print, there is absolutely no way ever on god's green earth that you can guarantee it will look the same when you get the print back. But good luck!

Digital Matt · Mar 13, 2006

MaxBloom said:
If you take a digital photo on your computer and give it to a lab to print, there is absolutely no way ever on god's green earth that you can guarantee it will look the same when you get the print back. But good luck!

Umm, sure there is. Calibrate your monitor with a colorimeter, and convert your colors in photoshop to the destination profile color space of the printer. Most use sRGB, but some have specific ones for the type of paper they use. You can get the color profile from the printer.

The print should look very close if not identical to your monitor image under similar lighting.