Printing thousands of museum grade prints a year, we like to think we know a thing or two about how to obtain the highest quality for fine art prints.
Preparing optimum digital files plays a key role in the quality of prints. How your digital files reproduce for fine art printing is dependent on a number of factors - here are some of our top tips to get your images print ready.
Tip #1 - Capturing your image
Probably the most important is the original file size an image is captured at. When capturing those amazing moments, it’s important to ensure that your camera is operating at the highest quality that it will allow. In this case, we strongly suggest shooting all images in RAW at the highest resolution your camera allows.
Don’t be fooled, capturing images at a lower resolution may look good on screen but will not reproduce well in print (particularly at large format sizes). Trying to upsize small files into larger image sizes will most likely incur problems when printing.
What is RAW, you ask?
A RAW file is the most common file format for uncompressed images. RAW files are generally large in size as they contain minimally processed image data with lossless quality. As such, it holds the direct image data from the camera sensors with no loss of quality and alteration.
Tip #2 - File Format
Once you have captured your image and completed your post production editing, (we suggest using software such as Photoshop, Lightroom or similar) ensure that you export your image at full size with no compression. Prior to this, it can be a good idea to lighten an image on screen about a quarter of a stop, as images will always appear lighter on a computer with a backlit screen than they will appear in print.
Most fine art printers prefer images to be shared in 300dpi, which is higher than what you'd normally use for a screen (e.g. 96dpi). JPEG saved at 100% is compressing the file-size, but will not lose any image quality or clarity when printed. Always save from the original file though, to prevent loss of information. Uncompressed PNG files will also print well.
Tip #3 - Colour Spacing
A common debate amongst photographers is whether to use Adobe RGB98 or sRGB for colour spacing - some photographers favour sRGB; others swear by Adobe RGB. Regardless of this, we can all agree on one thing: you need to make sure your photos look their best when printed. Whether photography is your full-time job or a side hustle, ensuring quality should be the number one priority.
sRGB and Adobe RGB are two different colour space profiles (also known as colour models, or colour systems). A colour space is simply a range of possible colours. Adobe RGB is newer and holds more colors than sRGB. However most monitors will only show you the sRGB colors and don't have enough color depth for Adobe RGB. So in this regard, we ask for your prints in the sRGB color space, to prevent color shifts between your beautiful edit and the actual print. What you see on your monitor, is what you get on your print.
Tip #4 - Checking the image
At this point you can check the quality of the image and determine any potential issues that may arise in print. Our suggestion would be to first size your file at the maximum size it will be offered for print. Once sized, view the file somewhere between 65-100% zoom, which needs to be set up in your computer's preferences under units and rulers by setting your screen resolution to 300 pixels per inch. This will allow you to move about the image and check for pixelation and chromatic aberration (some of the undesirable issues that arise when an image is printed larger than its capabilities). If the file looks good and the image is clear then you’re good to go!
If you’re unsure how to do this or want a second opinion, our team at Riptide Prints can do this step for you.
Our required specs:
In summary, your file setup for print is:
- File type: JPEG (or PNG)
- Resolution: We print at 300dpi at the size required, we prefer being supplied the original image's full resolution, with a minimum of 3.000 pixels on the long side. We will resize the image before printing if necessary.
- Bit Depth: 8 Bit
- Colour Mode: RGB
- Colour Space: sRGB
- Flat file: Ensure there are no layers, paths or channels
The good news is that when printing your images through Riptide Prints, we’ll manually inspect each image before it heads to the printer, following and checking off the steps above. Even better yet, a member of our team inspects each finished print before it ships out to ensure it is of extreme high quality.
Any questions on printing your images? Feel free to contact us for any advice - we are always here to help!
