Preparing Digital Files in Photoshop for Print – Part 2: Strategies

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Preparing Digital Files in Photoshop for Print

If, after reading the post about potential risks of selling digital files to your customers, you feel pros outweigh the cons and that you it fits into your business model, you will want to minimize the risk of poor looking images. Read on to learn strategies in Photoshop to help your customers get the best prints possible from digital files.

1. sRGB colour space

Regardless of what colour space you edit in, the files you hand over must be in sRGB.  s(“standard”) RGB is the colour profile which will produce the most reliable results in print or on the web.  Files with a wider gamut (eg Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB) will look awful when printed at a consumer lab, or on a home printer, or shared on the web.

sRGB gives no guarantee of colour accuracy either, of course.  A cheap printer can still mess up your photos; and a cheap uncalibrated screen can display them poorly.  But I can give you one iron-clad guarantee – if sRGB looks bad, any other profile will look much worse.

In Photoshop, you can convert the profile of your images using Edit > Convert to Profile.  Or, for batch conversion, you can use the trusty File > Scripts > Image Processor.  From Lightroom, make sure you specify sRGB in the export options.

2. Jpeg file format

This is a simple one, of course.  Jpeg is really the only choice for sharing photos.  Everyone can view them, and they’re conveniently small.  No other format is suitable.

There tends to be a small amount of confusion surrounding Jpeg files.  Because they are a compressed file format, some people assume that there is quality loss.  I can assure you that any Jpegs saved at Quality Level 10 or above are visually indistinguishable from their uncompressed source.  There is absolutely nothing to fear from a High or Maximum quality Jpeg file.

3. Mild sharpening only

A lot of people don’t bother sharpening for print anyway, so this is a non-issue for them.  But for those of us who do like to sharpen our prints very precisely for the specific output size, it feels uncomfortable not to do so.

But the simple truth is, there’s no “one size fits all” sharpening setting.  An aggressive amount of sharpening will look great if the file is reduced in size for a small print (eg 6×4 or 5×7), but utterly awful if the file is enlarged for a wall print.  On the other hand, a light sharpen will look fine for a big print, but disappear on a small print, as if you hadn’t sharpened at all.  Neither option is perfect, but the latter is much more acceptable.

Even if you were willing to save multiple versions of every photo, resized and sharpened at each print size, you still couldn’t account for the print lab.  Some labs apply sharpening during printing, and others don’t.

It’s not worth the trouble or the risk, in my opinion.  Better to apply a small amount of sharpening, and leave it at that.  Small prints may not look as fantastic as they could, but large prints will look perfectly acceptable.

4. Crop to 11:15 shape

Earlier in this article I mentioned the potential problem of unsatisfactory composition and unexpected limb chops when printing some sizes.  We all know about this issue – it’s particularly prevalent with 8×10 prints.  The 4:5 shape of an 8×10 print is much shorter than the native 2:3 shape of your camera’s sensor, and requires significant cropping.

If you are printing yourself, you can carefully choose the crop for best results.  But your customer may have neither the awareness, skills or tools to do this, so the printed composition might be disappointing:

11-15-example Preparing Digital Files in Photoshop for Print - Part 2: Strategies Business Tips Guest Bloggers Photoshop Tips

What if you prepared all your files at the 4:5 shape?  Then you’d have the opposite problem – 6×4 prints would have too much detail cropped from the short sides.

The most thorough solution (as I mentioned above) would be to prepare multiple copies of each photo, cropped/resized/sharpened for every print size.  This would insure against the cropping problem (assuming the customer used the correct version), but would take much longer to prepare the files.

My solution is the 11:15 crop.  11:15 is the exact median shape in the centre of all the standard print shapes.  2:3 is the longest (6×4, 8×12), 4:5 is the shortest (8×10, 16×20), and 11:15 is right in the middle:

11-15-diagram Preparing Digital Files in Photoshop for Print - Part 2: Strategies Business Tips Guest Bloggers Photoshop Tips

I recommend cropping your customers’ files at the 11:15 shape.  This way, no matter what print size they choose, only a small amount of detail will be lost.  I also recommend cropping a tiny bit looser than you normally would, to allow for pixel loss during printing.

As you read this you might be thinking “But what if my in-camera composition was perfect, and I love it at the 2:3 shape?  Surely you’re not telling me to crop that?”.  Yes, I am.  It’s better for you to crop with control, than for your customer to crop willy-nilly.

Important note: 11:15 is a shape, not a size.  When cropping to 11:15 in Photoshop, do NOT enter a value in the “Resolution” field in the Options Bar.  Crop with a Width of 15 inches and a Height of 11 inches (or vice versa) but leave the Resolution blank.  This will mean that the remaining pixels don’t get changed in any way.

5. Resolution

If you follow my suggestion of 11:15-shaped files, you’ll find that your resolution (pixels per inch) value ends up all over the place!  It will be very random numbers like 172.83ppi or 381.91ppi, or whatever.

I can’t stress this firmly enough – IT DOESN’T MATTER!

The PPI value is completely irrelevant when you’re giving files to clients.  It means absolutely nothing.  Forget about it.  Your customer doesn’t have any software that can read that value, and even if they did, it wouldn’t make any difference.  A twelve megapixel file is still a twelve megapixel file, regardless of the arbitrary PPI value assigned to it.

I know that many of you won’t believe me, and for some reason will sleep more soundly at night if you’ve provided 300ppi files.  If you must do that (and again I stress you don’t need to) make sure you turn off the “Resample Image” checkbox when you’re changing the resolution in the Image Size dialog in Photoshop, so that you don’t alter the pixels in any way.

6. Print lab advice

Provide plain advice about printing options.  Recommend a lab to use – one that you know is affordable and accessible for members of the public, and produces good quality.  Make it clear that your images have been thoroughly prepared, therefore any “auto correction” service that a lab might provide should be turned off.

Advise that any home printing should only be done on high-quality photo paper.  In fact, you may wish to advise against home printing at all.

In some cases, your customers will ignore your guidelines, or fail to read them at all.  That’s all part of the risk.  But it’s imperative that you provide those instructions clearly, and hope for the best.

There is one more aspect of digital files that I need to discuss – Size.

Size needn’t be a vexed issue.  If you give your customers the full-size images (minus cropping, of course), and let them print at whatever size they like, that’s the end of the story.

But if you try to restrict the size that your customers can print, you run into more issues.  I have frequently seen discussions on forums that begin with this question: “How can I prevent my client printing larger than [size]?”

The answer is “You can’t.”  Well, not really.

At face value, it seems simple.  Just resize the file to 5×7 inches at 300ppi, right?  But 300ppi isn’t a magical number.  Prints look great at 240ppi, and adequate at 180ppi.  And if you’re talking about canvas prints, you can go down to 100ppi and still look ok!  And when I use words like “adequate” and “ok”, I’m talking in photographers’ language, not laymen’s language.  Heck, a member of the public will print a photo from Facebook and hang it on their wall!

So, the file you thought you were restricting to 5×7″ is suddenly a blurry three-foot-high canvas over somebody’s mantelpiece, and if you saw it, it would make you retch.  Let’s add a little more to the hypothetical conversation from earlier:

“Oh dear, why do you all look yellow?  And why is little Jimmy half chopped off? And why are you all fuzzy-looking?”

If you must downsize the photos because you don’t want to hand over all the megapixels from your camera, you MUST accompany the disk with a sternly-worded disclaimer clearly stating that no prints over [size] are permitted.  If they want larger prints, they must come back to you, and pay your prices.  But as I said earlier, you can’t be sure that everyone will read your disclaimer, and you can be sure that not everyone will respect it.

Frankly, I think that it’s better to sell the whole files, if you’re selling files at all.  You can still make a firm recommendation (or a contractual obligation) that large prints should be ordered through you.

Damien is a retoucher, restorer and Photoshop tutor from Australia, who is establishing a wide reputation as an “image troubleshooter”, for those hard-to-edit photos.  You can see his work, and a big range of articles and tutorials, on his site.

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No Comments

  1. Kelly @ Illustrations on January 20, 2011 at 9:18 am

    Fantastic article! I do sell digital files and use many of the guidelines above but definitely learned some tips to make the process even better! THANKS!

  2. Karen O'Donnell on January 20, 2011 at 9:25 am

    This is a great tutorial….thanks so much!

  3. ali b. on January 20, 2011 at 9:36 am

    thanks for the information tutorial – whatever a photographer’s cup of tea may be, it’s nice to have choices and be aware of good guidelines to go by.

  4. sara on January 20, 2011 at 9:42 am

    and this is why i love you damien 🙂 Wonderfully thorough information. So glad I listened to you and do things your way!

  5. Monica on January 20, 2011 at 9:56 am

    Thanks for all your tips!! I enjoy reading ur articles! Keep them comming!! =))

  6. Lisa Manchester on January 20, 2011 at 10:00 am

    I always love and appreciate your tutorials, Damien! I can’t tell you how much your advice has helped me along my journey! Thank you so much!

  7. Kim on January 20, 2011 at 10:06 am

    I love this! Thanks for all the information – very informative!!

  8. Christian on January 20, 2011 at 10:06 am

    Dear Jodi, at the begining of this post you mention : “Files with a wider gamut (eg Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB) will look awful when printed at a consumer lab, or on a home printer, or shared on the web.”I must say I strongly disagree with this point, you are right when it comes to a commercial Lab which in 90percent of the times just have a workflow that wil only accept jpegs in sRGB at 8 bit. Maybe it’s not clearly enough explained. Personaly I work almost only in ProPhoto at 16 Bits mode and I actualy print with the corresponding icc in ProPhoto at 16 Bits ’cause of the wide gamut I can acquire which we know sRGB can’t achive. I must also say that I print with an Epson Plotter and an Epson 3880 for smaller jobs. You mention “Home computer” well in that case you’re explanation might apply, I just felt that people who are not used to print very high quality images must also know that it is possible to print in other colour spaces than sRGB. Independent of, if they can achieve this or not. Hope I’m not of the line with my comment here.Keep up the good work, Best regardsChristian

    • Jodi Friedman, MCP Actions on January 20, 2011 at 12:22 pm

      I will go back and read what Damien, the guest blogger wrote. But most home printers and most monitors can only see sRGB on the web. That is why for web, as an example, it is recommended to convert to sRGB before uploading. As far as print, I do believe most printers that you could buy at wal-mart or target or an office supply store will also be sRGB. I would need to double check. And I know my Professional Lab Color Inc, which I have used for years, actually wants sRGB. Is this in line with what Damien was saying, that you disagree with? I am not opposed to hearing differing viewpoints here either. He is in AU. But I assume he will check in and see your comment at some point and respond too.Jodi

  9. Anke Turco on January 20, 2011 at 10:23 am

    What a great, informative article. I love your style. Thanks so much!

  10. Melissa M. on January 20, 2011 at 10:25 am

    Great article, Damien!

  11. Sarah C. on January 20, 2011 at 11:20 am

    This is great. Now, how about an article for people just starting out on how to prepare your photos for a professional print lab. I think that may be the reason a lot of people are going to just giving pictures on discs. It’s because they don’t know how to format for a professional print lab.

  12. Barb on January 20, 2011 at 11:24 am

    I’ve been reluctant to offer high res images on disc, but decided to add it late last year. I need to add some guidelines, and was wondering if anyone has recommendations for some good consumer labs?

  13. tamsen on January 20, 2011 at 11:30 am

    I cannot say enough good things about Damien and his incredible skills and knowledge and willingness to share them with everyone! Thank you for featuring him here! I always learn something new!

  14. Lenka Hattaway on January 20, 2011 at 11:38 am

    Excellent article and funny, too! Thank you!

  15. Tera Brockway on January 20, 2011 at 11:39 am

    This little tidbit of information is gold. Thank you!

  16. Kirsty-Abu Dhabi on January 20, 2011 at 11:55 am

    Great article and lots of very valid points. What I do to help combat clients printing out bad quality copies is give them one copy of EVERY file on their disc at 5 x 7 size – that way they see a good copy and if they go to a printer who colour corrects or crops or whatever they’ll know it’s not as good as what I provide. I call it my own quality control or safety net and it works well for me – of course, I do charge a premium for the digital files in the first place 😉

  17. irene on January 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    Excellent article and couldn’t have come at a better time – in fact it was one of the questions i asked Jodi today 🙂 will definately be checking out his site

  18. Laura on January 20, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    Great love it, one question though- to print an album my images need to be 300 DPI, is that the same as the resolution in adobe photoshop? If so, do I change that to 300 and then uncheck the box for resample image?thanksLaura

  19. Jenn on January 20, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    I sell digital files and use these guidelines (got them from other photogs advice). I haven’t had any issues. Great article!

    • Allison on February 4, 2013 at 12:17 pm

      Hi Jenn. I was wondering what you charge for digital files. I took a look on your website ( very nice by the way) and didn’t see a price for digital files. Also, do you watermark or put a signature on the digital files at all?

  20. Damien on January 20, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Christian, did you even read the article? I’m talking about files given to members of the public. Trust me, friend, anything other than sRGB is quality suicide.

  21. Pete Nicholls on January 20, 2011 at 6:37 pm

    Great article, but agree with Christian on using wide gamuts. I use ProPhoto16-bit files and they look great on my home printer. The secret is knowing how to color manage your workflow. If I have printing done outside, I interview the printer to see if they are color managed and have appropriate color profiles. I do agree with you, however, that most of them will only accept sRGB (to take the easy way out!).

  22. Liz on January 20, 2011 at 6:51 pm

    When I change the image size to a ratio of 11:15 it looks distorted on my screen. Is that okay or did I goof? Thanks!

  23. Liz on January 20, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    When I resize my image to a ratio of 11:15 it looks distorted on my screen (I use CS5). Am I doing something wrong? Thanks for the help!

  24. Christian on January 20, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    Damien, sorry mate my mistake, totally my fault, I misread and yes you’re right if you are giving files out to a client so that he can print them in a commercial Lab yes it’s the only way (the one you’ve mentioned of course)Although I still believe and this could be the topic for another post, that people should be aware that it is possible to print in a much higher quality than in a commercial Lab. But… what’s even more interesting you would be surprised at quantity of folks I’ve seen printing the way you’ve mentioned back home in eg: R2440 or R2880 just to mention some printers that are accessible to anyone, just ’cause they’ve told them that the best way is to print in sRGB an in 8 Bit, or for the case the read in ablog or somewhere else on the web.To what Jodi wrote I doubt that you find an every day printer that could print in any other way than the one Damian mentioned.Once again I apologize for the confusion, Best regardsChristian

  25. Damien on January 23, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    Laura, yes, if you’d like to change your images to 300ppi, you can do it exactly as you describe – in Image Size, with “Resample” unchecked.However, I hasten to point out that resolution is immaterial when putting images in templates. When you paste, the image will assume the resolution of the template, so you needn’t worry about it.And even better, if you use File>Place, it comes in as a smart object.

  26. Damien on January 23, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    Liz, you need to use the Crop Tool for 11:15. It can’t be done with the Image Size dialog.

  27. Damien on January 23, 2011 at 8:23 pm
  28. Bianca Diana on July 17, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Damien,Excellent article! I am an amateur photographer with pro mentality. I was looking for a set of guidelines to use when preparing about 200 wedding photos for a DVD to give to a client (with copyright release) for printing. I wanted to make sure I had things straight. Took me a while to find this! It’s the only article I could find on the matter. (Forums are a nightmare) This article was very reassuring. Thank you!

  29. Jess Hoff on September 6, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    Thank you so much for this article! I am still pretty inexperienced in digital photography so this might be a dumb question: what do you mean by “selling the whole files”? Does that just mean the largest sized file for each photograph?Thanks!

  30. Amy K on July 21, 2012 at 7:56 pm

    Here’s another dumb question:Is there a way to do the 11:15 crop in Lightroom 3? I do use Photoshop for the artistic stuff, but for group exporting and such I use LR. Or do you have an article on how to do the 11:15 crop in Photoshop on more than one photo at a time? I assume no one has that much time!Thanks in advance,Amy

  31. AJCoombs on October 10, 2012 at 8:26 am

    I have a question…..I was told to size all my photos to Photo ratio. So I can assume from this article that I should instead do 11:15. But are all the photos I’ve sent out in the photo ratio getting cropped horribly? I’m starting to freak out that I have horrible looking photos out there. And what is the difference from photo ratio to 11:15?

  32. Amy on May 19, 2013 at 9:54 am

    Great article, thanks! I have a follow up question, I have been sizing 15×21 because if they want to go very large, say 16×24 etc, it is closer to that size and will print better. Does this matter? Should I go down to 11×15, will it still print great at a larger size?

  33. Cheruyl on August 26, 2013 at 5:58 pm

    You’re over thinking this. If a print has a cut off head, or comes out blurry when the digital file doesn’t, it’s obvious it’s an issue with the printing, not the photography. Most people are smart enough to put those 2 facts together, and by giving them a “guideline” you risk insulting their intelligence for the sake of the 1% who aren’t.People who don’t care about quality can’t be forced to care, they will do whatever they want, you can’t do a lot about it, a short disclaimer is enough to cover yourself, but don’t waste too much time trying to control what other people do.

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