Ok easy question hope its an easy answer.

What is the best quality and method of printing your art work/ photos?

Best file type and settings to save the image for reproduction on film. Im not talking printer quality here Im looking for the best method to reproduce some digital photos on high grade film.

What is the best quality grade of film to use and is matt better than sheen...I have some images that have been sold and I want to keep one hard copy of them so I want the best I can get.

Thanks in advance

thx for this tpic Blurker, im quite interested in the matter...in fact i have hard times getting the right colours each time i intend to print in a "photo" shop....and I checked my PS CS2 settings, and despite the fact i thought to get the jpeg in CMJY instead of RGB, i totally forgot to replace the "US web coated" parameter by "european...." last week i found my mistake and next time ill have to print, i think it will be ok this time maybe.

for printer stuff and paper, well i dunno...u can print on a canvas u must know that?

CMJY?? sorry i am of no help on this issue blurk

Howdy Blue,

Paper surface is a question of User Taste (so in YOUR case you are DOOMED as you have consistently shown you have NO TASTE! ) But here is kinda how it is: Matte is good nice for stuff you don't want any glare getting in the viewer's way. It can appear a bit "soft" (like ah you HEAD!), but for certain subjects this can add to the image quality. GLOSSY, on the other hand, is good or detail work. It tends to look sharper and more focused. BUT BUT BUT you do have that glare issue to deal with. The other thing about glossy paper is that it just tends to feel "more professional" than matte... I think this has a lto do with how we've all been brought up to think a GLOSSY magazine looks better than a flat boring old newspaper.



Satin - ah.... satin! IT is a nice place between those other two paper surface worlds... it can have the detail holding power of glossy and yet glare is very low and therefore the image can be seen more easily. It is one of my favorite surfaces (especially when wrapped around my gal late at night with a bottle of wine nearbye and... oh. Sorry - got a bit off track there...)

If you can find someone who can print on a professional format Ink-Jet printer (using pigment inks instead of dye-based inks) you'll get a super job. Ink jets have a much wider "spread" of colour-handling abilities than your average print-shop. Usually the inkJet people can take your RGB file as is... an unlayered TIFF is a good file type (no loss in detail data, but big file size. I'm sure you can afford a 30 cent DVD? ) Make sure your image is the size (physically) that you want it and that you've got 300 dots per inch as your resolution. (Unless you are printing BIG BIG, like POSTER SIZE, then you can get away with 250 dpi~200dpi depending on the actual image style content)

IF you go to a standard Pre-Press type printer (they separate your image into four "plates" of cyan, magenta, yellow and black and then lay on 4 separate layers of ink) then you'd do wise to convert your RGB image into CMYK in Photoshop itself, THEN save the flattened TIFF file.

One important thing here is monitor calibration. If you've calibrated your monitor by EYE and not with a colourimeter (like EyeOne or Spyder) then you are in for a bit of a crap shoot. If you are planning on doing any medium to serious amount of printing in ANY format, investing in a good basic colour monitor calibration device is MUCHO IMPORTANT.



Oh - and Micose has a very good point there (its on the top of his head, and if he combs his hair right he can cover it up! I'm KIDDING!!!!! Naiko hasn't got any hair now! ) *ehem!* where was i? Oh yes - different nations have different standards for the CMYK conversion. European has about 3 different options / USA has about 4/ OZ? WHO KNOWS! Check with your local Ozzy printer which conversion algorithmn to use - you just set it once in Photoshop's COLOUR SETTINGS preferences. That will make sure that you have a Happy CMYK conversion with no unsightly afterbulge .

Hope some of this makes sense... if not, just drink a wee bit more BEER!!!

(and, to be clear here, I'm NOT an expert on this stuff. My training has been at the University of Hard Knocks. So if anyone has more to add, or wishes to "adjust" something I've said - have at it! )

http://www.pixel2canvas.com

For canvas printing, this site gets rave reviews from the portrait painting forum I visit. Haven't used them yet, though....

just want to add, that I think to remember very darkly, that blurkers job is working with an offset-printing machine, am I right?

What I understand on this is that you want to keep the images. If possible the camera raw files would be best most untouched on the data. If you're talking actual film if I remember that far back lowest speed for most pixels of resolution NP for still pictures or max detail. For an actual hard copy maybe think about on photo-paper from the neg.The Matt or sheen is usually up to lookers preference on the photo paper as is the papers quality as well to a point. But the sheen can give a certain amount of glare so i prefer matt/flat.

If not what you're talking about disregard!

isn't the printer kinda important too??
i been looking at the canon -PIXMA-IP4500 for a mid price replacement for my dead printer
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CANON-PIXMA-IP4500-Photo-Document-Printer_W0QQitemZ190222160494QQihZ009QQcategoryZ178QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Photo printing
Enjoy superior quality photo prints with fine detail and smooth colour gradations, thanks to tiny 1pl ink droplets and a high 9600x2400dpi* print resolution. The 5 Single Ink system includes a dye-based black that brings extra depth and contrast to photos.


impresive

to simplify what reinman said with a lil added schtuff

regular at home printer:
300dpi RGB and TIFF

large print:
100-150 dpi for very large(by the foots)
200-250 dpi for somewhat large

mass reproduction press flippaddydoo:
300 dpi CMYK and TIFF

Yeah
You COULD say it THAT way too.

But it ain't as FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the help guys

Yeah piggy I use to work for a newspaper but best quality printing was to newsprint standards not hi res.

I guess what I'm after is help in getting the best print of my photos, they are digital images and on disc. What I want to know is when I take it to photo kevron or kodakphoto house what is my best method of saving the image for the best quality?
and
when I go to get them printed should I get the images printed on, paper. glossy. flat, you get he idea. Because this will be the only copy I will have I want to make sure I get he best I can.

I'm not to sure what my legal rights are now I have sold the images and the company that has purchased my photos said they had no trouble keeping a copy for my portfolio as long as I don't re-sell the photos.

Maybe you could write a little line at the bottom of each photo, stating to which company you sold your photo to? And create a watermark in the corner that indicates the image was sold, that way you acknowledge the change of rights. For your unsold photo's you can use a different watermark and state that the copyright is your own. That way even your heirs will know what is and what is not part of your estate.

Um not worried about the copy right thing, just want to get the best out of the printed image. Had them printed off at photokevron 2day and they look ok but Im sure they can be better if printed professionally not just at a process centre.

I would say at this point the best way to find out is to do one that way and then see what you think. For only the blue lurker knows for sure!