Best printing options?

Hello everyone! It has been quite a while since I have logged on.. life has gotten in the way of fun for too long. I am seeking to print large prints of some of my better shots, but have some questions. My normal process is to take the photos in raw, edit them in lightroom, and save as .jpeg for uploading to an online printing service. My raw files are 19MB vs. 6 or 9MB for .jpeg. Would the raw files not be better to print from, especially for large (24 x 36) prints? Is there a service available that will print from raw?

Thanks,

Rich

The RAW files won't have your tweaks, so will be "flat" for printing. (At least that is my take on it. Ha!) The RAW files have lots of information available, but will not tell the printer what and how you want to use that info.

Now that I have said all of this, someone else who really knows what they are talking about will come in and give you the straight info. Ha!

I found an interesting article that may be more about what you are looking for. Have a look HERE.

Some will print from a TIFF file so that might be your best choice. But the real limiting factor is the size if your original file. 3008 x 2000 pixels which is a 13X20 at 150 pixels per inch. Your best prints though are at 300 [FONT=arial, sans-serif]pixels per inch which would be roughly a 8X10 from your camera. To go big and keep decent quality you will need to use software like Perfect Resize to get upsize it correctly. Just making it bigger in Photoshop or other program will only make it worse.

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Walt, I am checking out that link now. Don, I have just attempted my first photo with Perfect Resize.. I will let you know how it comes out!

texaslimo said:

Hello everyone! It has been quite a while since I have logged on.. life has gotten in the way of fun for too long. I am seeking to print large prints of some of my better shots, but have some questions. My normal process is to take the photos in raw, edit them in lightroom, and save as .jpeg for uploading to an online printing service. My raw files are 19MB vs. 6 or 9MB for .jpeg. Would the raw files not be better to print from, especially for large (24 x 36) prints? Is there a service available that will print from raw?

Thanks,

Rich

Click to expand...

The printed pixel density will determine details on a print. For close scrutiny (coffee book) 300DPI is minimum, while for hanging prints viewed at 2-3 feet, 150DPI would suffice posters visible from 10+ feet can get away with 50DPI while billboards are fine at 10DPI. RAW, JPEG or TIFF files will have the same number of pixels, so as far as print resolution is concerned they should yeald the same result.

Next comes the colour depth, that is colour shades. JPEG have 8 bits per colour, while RAW (and TIFF derived from RAW) varies from 12 to 16 depending on body, so the colour depth will definitely depend on the number of bits. This colour depth will also depend on the printer and most printers used by commercial houses have 8 bits (or less) colour depth. There are few high end printers which can give 10 bits. If the printer can print at 10 bit colour or more, then the image will benefit from TIFF 16 bit file, else 8 bit JPEG is enough.