Form For Printing?

zutty

Senior Member
I'm wondering what the best form (either TIFF or JPG?) and what size is best to get the best quality print, either from a home printer or a lab. I shoot in RAW but have LR5 and PScc for post.
I guess I'm just asking what is the best way (profile etc.)to get for best prints in a small to moderate size....Like 11x14 max or maybe a little larger.
Thanks!
 

WayneF

Senior Member
Many if not most printing services accept only JPG. And JPG is fine for printing, if at decently high JPG Quality level... like 9 of 10. TIF and JPG are about the same thing, at least they are the same RGB image, except TIF has no JPG artifacts. But a decently high JPG Quality level should not either. There is no reason to degrade the image quality with excessive JPG compression.

For optimum printing, the size should be near 300 pixels per inch (I say dpi, some say ppi).

For 11x14, that is (11 inches x 300 dpi) x (14 inches x 300 dpi) = 3300 x 4200 pixels.
(Your resize box shows this calculation for you)

It need not be exact, maybe within 15%... 200 dpi probably works for large prints (not held under our nose to view them), but 300 is good ...

pixels - use them if you've got them.

Here is a review of image resizing basics: Image Resize - Cropping, Resampling, Scaling
 
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