File Prep. for printing

On Mar 22, 1:25 am, TetoPR <Tet....DeleteThis@NoSpam.net> wrote:
> Hi,
> I own a 2mp kodak digital camera and I like to play with my pictures
> in photoshop.
> Ater editing my pictures what should I do to get the best out of a
> Walgreens comercial printing service? I mean, save it in CMYK or RGB?
> Which settings would you use? I know they use a Frontier 370 printer.
> I must be doing something very wrong: I took a picture of my GF and
> gave her a 'dior retouch' (from some tutorial over the web), it
> looked great in my monitor, even printed well on my Epson CX5000, but
> since it started to fade I took it to the local Walgreens and it was a
> disaster.
>
> Thanks in advance.


1) Make sure your monitor is calibrated, bottom end calibration is
Adobe Gamma, if you use Gamma make sure the light in the room si
somewaht subdued, but not off, especially that there are no lights
reflecting off the screen. A ColorVision Spyder is excellent if you
want to pay for hardware.
2) Your printer probably wants Adobe RGB, most ink jets print aRGB
well. The Fuji wants sRGB and doesn't do well with aRGB. Go to Edit
Convert to Profile and select sRGB.
3) Set the size to 1800 x 1200 @ 300ppi and you should be done.
The monitor calibration is critical, if your monitor isn't calibrated
your colors can be all over the place.

Tom
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On 22 Mar 2007 05:26:54 -0700, "tomm42" <tmonego DeleteThis @wildblue.net> wrote:

>On Mar 22, 1:25 am, TetoPR <Tet... DeleteThis @NoSpam.net> wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I own a 2mp kodak digital camera and I like to play with my pictures
>> in photoshop.
>> Ater editing my pictures what should I do to get the best out of a
>> Walgreens comercial printing service? I mean, save it in CMYK or RGB?
>> Which settings would you use? I know they use a Frontier 370 printer.
>> I must be doing something very wrong: I took a picture of my GF and
>> gave her a 'dior retouch' (from some tutorial over the web), it
>> looked great in my monitor, even printed well on my Epson CX5000, but
>> since it started to fade I took it to the local Walgreens and it was a
>> disaster.
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>
>
>1) Make sure your monitor is calibrated, bottom end calibration is
>Adobe Gamma, if you use Gamma make sure the light in the room si
>somewaht subdued, but not off, especially that there are no lights
>reflecting off the screen. A ColorVision Spyder is excellent if you
>want to pay for hardware.
>2) Your printer probably wants Adobe RGB, most ink jets print aRGB
>well. The Fuji wants sRGB and doesn't do well with aRGB. Go to Edit
>Convert to Profile and select sRGB.
>3) Set the size to 1800 x 1200 @ 300ppi and you should be done.
>The monitor calibration is critical, if your monitor isn't calibrated
>your colors can be all over the place.
>
>Tom

Thank you both, Bob and Tom. Turns out that I was saving using CMYK
instead of RGB. Results are a lot better now, perfect for my use,
which is just to play around and give prints as gifts.
 >> Stay informed about: File Prep. for printing 

On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:42:50 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
<mytbobnospam.TakeThisOut@cox.net> wrote,
>For a 4x6 Print, resize your image to 1800 x 1200 pixels.
>Save it in jpeg and sRGB.
>That is what Walgreen's expects.
>Bob Williams

If you do that, how many of those pixels come out on the 4" x 6" paper,
and how many of them bleed off the edge and are never seen?
 >> Stay informed about: File Prep. for printing 

"David Harmon" <source DeleteThis @netcom.com> wrote in message
news:4648d9e3.257972328@news.west.earthlink.net...
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:42:50 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
> <mytbobnospam DeleteThis @cox.net> wrote,
>>For a 4x6 Print, resize your image to 1800 x 1200 pixels.
>>Save it in jpeg and sRGB.
>>That is what Walgreen's expects.
>>Bob Williams
>
> If you do that, how many of those pixels come out on the 4" x 6" paper,
> and how many of them bleed off the edge and are never seen?
>
Depends on what dpi Walgreens uses for printing.
Jim
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On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:59:47 GMT, David Harmon <source RemoveThis @netcom.com>
wrote:

>On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:42:50 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
><mytbobnospam RemoveThis @cox.net> wrote,
>>For a 4x6 Print, resize your image to 1800 x 1200 pixels.
>>Save it in jpeg and sRGB.
>>That is what Walgreen's expects.
>>Bob Williams
>
>If you do that, how many of those pixels come out on the 4" x 6" paper,
>and how many of them bleed off the edge and are never seen?

They print at 300 dpi, so those numbers are correct, at least from my
experiance. Unless they mess with the image size, like the first time
when the guy teried to print me a borderless picture he blew up some
dimesions.
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In article <3i3603psve9vgfrr6s3iefoqa07vo0odek.RemoveThis@4ax.com>,
TetoPR <TetoPR.RemoveThis@NoSpam.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 19:59:47 GMT, David Harmon <source.RemoveThis@netcom.com>
> wrote:
>
> >On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:42:50 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
> ><mytbobnospam.RemoveThis@cox.net> wrote,
> >>For a 4x6 Print, resize your image to 1800 x 1200 pixels.
> >>Save it in jpeg and sRGB.
> >>That is what Walgreen's expects.
> >>Bob Williams
> >
> >If you do that, how many of those pixels come out on the 4" x 6" paper,
> >and how many of them bleed off the edge and are never seen?
>
> They print at 300 dpi, so those numbers are correct, at least from my
> experiance. Unless they mess with the image size, like the first time
> when the guy teried to print me a borderless picture he blew up some
> dimesions.

1800x1200 300ppi on a 6x4 will leave tiny misalignment marks at the
edges of some photos. They're going to print it a little bit larger to
guarantee full coverage. Since you don't know if they're enlarging
optically or with resampling, it's best to not guess what resolution the
print service will be using. Let them resample it. You'd only want to
do resampling yourself if the original resolution is so poor that you
need to make touchups.
 >> Stay informed about: File Prep. for printing 

David Harmon wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 23:42:50 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
> <mytbobnospam DeleteThis @cox.net> wrote,
>
>>For a 4x6 Print, resize your image to 1800 x 1200 pixels.
>>Save it in jpeg and sRGB.
>>That is what Walgreen's expects.
>>Bob Williams
>
>
> If you do that, how many of those pixels come out on the 4" x 6" paper,
> and how many of them bleed off the edge and are never seen?
>

If you send Walgreen's an image that is 4x6 inches and 300 pixels/inch,
precious few pixels (think none) will bleed off the edges.

It is not important at what resolution the Walgreen's machine prints.
If necessary, it will resample to, say 240 or 350 or whatever, BUT...the
picture dimensions will remain 4 x 6 inches.
Bob Williams
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On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:25:52 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
<mytbobnospam RemoveThis @cox.net> wrote,
>If you send Walgreen's an image that is 4x6 inches and 300 pixels/inch,
>precious few pixels (think none) will bleed off the edges.

I don't know about Walgreen's.

I happen to have handy a couple of prints that I just had made at CVS on
their machine, which is a Noritsu QSS-3011SM if I am reading it right.

Starting with 6"x4", 1800x1200 pixels I can tell from features near the
edge that I have lost at least 20 pixels at one end. That seems like a
lot. And it looks like about 12 off one side. The other sides don't
have enough detail to tell by.

I wouldn't care except that I would like to be able to scale something
to an exact final size in some cases, and it would be nice to feed them
a file of precisely the right size so that they wouldn't do _any_
re-scaleing.
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David Harmon wrote:

> On Fri, 23 Mar 2007 00:25:52 -0700 in rec.photo.digital, Bob Williams
> <mytbobnospam.DeleteThis@cox.net> wrote,
>
>>If you send Walgreen's an image that is 4x6 inches and 300 pixels/inch,
>>precious few pixels (think none) will bleed off the edges.
>
>
> I don't know about Walgreen's.
>
> I happen to have handy a couple of prints that I just had made at CVS on
> their machine, which is a Noritsu QSS-3011SM if I am reading it right.
>
> Starting with 6"x4", 1800x1200 pixels I can tell from features near the
> edge that I have lost at least 20 pixels at one end. That seems like a
> lot. And it looks like about 12 off one side. The other sides don't
> have enough detail to tell by.
>
> I wouldn't care except that I would like to be able to scale something
> to an exact final size in some cases, and it would be nice to feed them
> a file of precisely the right size so that they wouldn't do _any_
> re-scaleing.
>
>

WOW! 12 out of 1200 pixels is a precious little loss. (1%)
If you need more accuracy than that, don't order "borderless" prints.
You should then preserve ALL your pixels, but the printed area may be
slightly smaller than 4x6. The choice is yours.
Bob Williams
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