Preparing Pictures for Print

[Rebekah5280]

When I look at an image on my computer, it looks great! When I print; good, but not great. I'm not getting what I'm seeing on my computer screen. Color-wise, I have figured out that I need my images a certain brightness/color tint ect to get the coloring right in print, but the sharpness of my pictures is still suffering! My question is:
How do you prepare your images for print?

I print out in a matte/luster finish. Should I be sharpening my images more if I am going to be printing them out? Like I said, everything looks fine on my computer, but its not translating well to print.

Here is my current work flow, in case its needed to help fix my issue: I shoot in RAW, fix any exposure issues, and sharpen if needed. I then convert to JPEG 8-bit and do finishing edits (usually just contrast and color level tweaks) in PSE9.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[CCericola]

Is your monitor calibrated?

 

[Kerbouchard]

You should just be starting to see halos from the sharpening for print. Generally, an image that prints great does not look great on a monitor. It generally looks oversharpened. If you google sharpening for print, you will get tons of results. If you don't feel comfortable with that, pick a good lab and let them autocorrect. Just my .02.

 

[Helen B]

What size do you view your images at when sharpening? I try to view at close to the physical size they will be printed at (that doesn't mean 100% in Photoshop). Not perfect, but the best approximation.


Best,
Helen

 

[Rebekah5280]

Helen ~ Good tip! Thanks! When I'm doing anything in PhotoShop I am typically zoomed in. I never thought about looking at the image close to actual print size. Thanks!!