 Francesco Cristofaro |
Is a TIFF file the best quality? Friends, I'm still a relative newcomer. I still haven't figured out, how to upload an image to BP! I have a Minolta Dimage Dual Scan 3 film scanner, for my negatives and slides. I have Photoshop CS, which is still a minefield to negotiate, my printer is a Canon i9950 A3, 8 ink printer. My camera is a Canon EOS 3, for which I have 2 zoom lenses with image stabilizer. So, if I scan into the PC at the highest resolution of the scanner, and if my image is ok and I save as a TIFF file, would I be able to print off satisfactory images at home? I ask because my brother has a forecourt shop and has enquired if I would like to sell some images. It started me thinking. So I sent off for some samples from 2 companies here in Britain, who specialise in printing postcards and greetings cards. Another question is, what quality must I achieve if I consider selling some of my work? What would be a good profit margin? I thank you all in advance for your help and patience, to my humble query.
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anonymous |
I can answer your tiff file, yes, save as tiff, especially while you are doing work to your photo in Photoshop, as if you saved as jpeg, everytime you closed out of it after doing something to it, it would compress it more. You should be fine to save as jpeg to print, as long as you are not going to edit it anymore. I really don't know how to answer the other questions, I suppose it is all subjective to where you live, what your market is, what you are photographing. For an example, I print my 6x4's at 33c each and sell them for $4, and my 8x12's I print for $5 and sell for $30, but here in Aust, those prices are cheap. Some photographers will sell an 8x12 for $50+.
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Samuel Smith |
hey francesco, i,m with you on the photoshop,i'm really struggling.haven't printed a picture from it yet.i finally learned the comtuter just a few years ago.over 50,didn't grow up with it.but I have been learning to upload pictures.i hope I don't steer you wrong.long side of picture 750 pixels,short side of picture 500 pixels,i set my resolution at 72 pixels per inch.by the way,it's right here below where i'm typing my response.doooh! print a picture and find out what it looks like,i don't know your printer or much of anything else. i save my files for uploading to this site in jpeg,and don't go much over 1MB.saves time. as far as the rest,don't really know.but it's nice to have a brit on board. welcome,sam
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Andrew Laverghetta |
Well, here's how I put my pictures on BetterPhoto.com. First of all it's keeping them under the limit but I'm not intentionally following the 750x500 or whatever guideline. I use the crop tool usually and crop it to 4x6 at 135dpi. If you want it to look more like an 8x10 online, you can crop it at 4x5 instead. You could also crop at something like 4x4 if you want it square. I would save everything to be put on betterphoto as a JPEG. Again, JPEG is also good for printing. TIFF is also good because it won't "loose" any information because the data is not compressed. I think you could get great results at home. I think you would want to print somewhere between 200 and 300 dpi. 300 dpi would be the best, I think. If you can print one of your pictures and are satisfied with it, I think you should print some for your brothers shop. Maybe sure you write up some kind of formal invoice though when you sell them. Next thing, since you're scanning your negatives there's probably going to be some dust and stuff so you'll need to learn to use the healing brush in Photoshop to paint over dust marks after sampling from a nearby area. I'm not sure about which printer that is you're using but I'm guessing since the model number is close to Canon's i9900, it's probably very good. Well, my response probably looks like a mess and since I'm not sure about the business end of it as much, somebody should correct me if I need correcting. Hope this helps!
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Francesco Cristofaro |
Dear Natalie, Samuel and Andrew, thank you all for your replies, I really appreciate it. If I save as TIFF, does that mean I can go back to manipulate the image further? Natalie, you print at 33c and sell for $4? I don't think I'd get away with that, not as a beginner. Locally, I know what I'm up against, there is talent here in Pembrokeshire. So I'd need to be damn clever to muscle in on the action. However, I do have the chance of another outlet. There is a small gallery near my home that sells framed images for local photographers. I have been in contact, I just need to get my act together. The postcard company I'm interested in, offers a printing run of 500 postcards for £75, which I think is ok. Samuel, I'm 48, not far behind you, I love PCs and all gadgets, but haven't got the brains to figure them out! I've sent a roll of 120 film to be processed and scanned to CD. Apparently, each image would open to about 24MG. So how would I upload that onto BP? I forgot to say, I also have a Bronica ETRSi, so I'm waiting for my first results. Andrew, my i9950 is I believe similar or the same as i9900, why these different numbers? I've printed off these replies for reference as I need to figure out the dpi of my images. All I know so far, is how to scan my slides or negs into Mr. PC, open up Photoshop and fool around with a couple of things and print out as 6x4, A4, A3, or whatever comes out of the printer! I believe I understand what you are all saying, it's just a case of getting down to do it. Another term I've come across is interpolation. What is this? When I scan an image into Photoshop and end up cropping the image, when I print onto say 6x4, sometimes the image doesn't fill the size of the print. By cropping, does the quality deteriorate? I'm sorry for all these questions and thank you again if you take the time to reply. Thank you, Francesco Cristofaro.
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doug Nelson |
You are right to scan at full resolution, as it gives you the most options. Go into Image/Image Size and be sure Resample is NOT checked. Enter the common input resolution most printers require, 300 pixels-per-inch. The resulting dimensions will be calculated for you. Save that file to an auxiliary hard drive or to a file you burn to a CD, as an archive copy. Then, you are free to size your image to the print size you want. Check Resample this time and change the image length (or height) AND the resolution (still 300). You will be throwing out some pixels, but FOR THIS PURPOSE, that's OK. Cropping does not necessarly result in poorer print quality, but do this BEFORE the Image Size procedure above. As long as you end up with a printable size, and still maintain about 300 ppi, you will be able to crop. JPEG is a compression algorithm, for posting images on the web. Every time you do an operation and SAVE, it compresses the image some more. Like a rabbit in traffic, you MAY get away with it several times. The file will not be closed; it will continue to open. See if the articles on my site are any help to you.
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Samuel Smith |
francesco, get your gallery up so we can see some of that pretty british countryside. i don't get out much,whats a forecourt shop? thanks for the e-mail,more of that great british courtesy. good luck with the pixels and shhhtuff. sam
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Francesco Cristofaro |
Hello Samuel, I'll try to set up a gallery as soon as my brain allows! Forecourts here in UK are petrol stations, that also have a small or large convenience store on site. My brother's store is a typical small convenience store, but it's crammed to the ceilings with stock. The previous owner didn't do his business justice. So from a standing start, my brother is quite successful. Later this year, he plans to build a store twice the current size and use his existing building for storage. So watch this space!
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John Rhodes |
Francesco, I just want to clarify one point on sizing a photo for upload to BP. You were advised to set 750 x 500. If you do this for all photos, you will adversly affect the proportions of the photo. I refer to Photoshop; go to Image>Resize>Image Size. You should set the shortest side to 500 pixels and leave the box "constrain proportion" checked; it will set your long side correctly. I set resolution to 180 ppi (default in Photoshop). VR
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Kerry L. Walker |
With the price of fuel now, we call our petrol stations "mortgage brokers".
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Brendan Knell |
Great one Kerry!!! lol!
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Samuel Smith |
hey francesco, i forgot to ask,what's the scuttlebut over there on crop circles.got any pictures? sam
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Francesco Cristofaro |
Hi Samuel, I haven't got any photos of circle crops. We've got plenty of crops here, but running short of circles! What's a scuttlebut? Cheers, Francesco.
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Kerry L. Walker |
Scuttlebutt is just chatter, talk, rumors, etc.
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Samuel Smith |
again,thank you kerry
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