Providing print-ready images

Standard editing by REDIpix.com

Standard editing of your images by a Photoshop professional is included in our print prices.  This includes a wide range of editing such as preparing for the sides of your gallery wrap, red-eye correction, brightness/contrast adjustments, conversion to black and white, noise reduction, upsizing, and sharpening.

If you are a professional and have experience with Photoshop and want to do all this preparation yourself, you can obtain a discount. Below we specify our requirements for providing print-ready images in order to qualify for the discount. The amount of this discount is negotiable along with the wholesale discount.

Color management

As we explain on our color management page, all monitors and printers need to be calibrated and profiled to obtain predictable colors and brightness/contrast on the print. For example, if your monitor is set to a brightness that is higher than standard, an image that looks good to you on your monitor will print too dark. Even if your monitor is color managed, it takes experience to obtain good prints because the monitor has a higher dynamic range than prints. Therefore we highly recommend that you calibrate and profile your monitor and also calibrate and profile your printer so you can make small test prints of an image before submitting it to us for printing. In addition, you should view proof colors in Photoshop using the printing profiles for our ink and paper. How to do all this is explained on our color management page.

Requirements for image files submitted for printing

• File type must be .tiff or full quality jpeg. There is a loss of quality with jpeg, so you should not save intermediate files as jpeg.
• Resolution should be 300 dpi at the final print size. For 20x20 inch and larger prints it is ok to upsize to 200 dpi. We upsize to 600 dpi when we send to the printer.
• The dimensions of the image should match the print size you ordered exactly (don't order a 16x20 print and submit a 16x20.5 image. You can order a 16x20.5 print).
• Color space must be Adobe RGB (1998) and 8 bits/channel. Although we recommend you convert raw files to 16 bits/channel while editing them, there is no advantage in sending a 16 bits/channel file to the printer. Note that if you use ProPhoto color space then it important to work in 16 bits/channel until you are ready to upload, then convert to Adobe RGB (1998) and 8 bits/channel. This will not degrade the print.
• You should sharpen as the last step after upsizing. We recommend the Photoshop Smart Sharpen filter. Make sure you do not over-sharpen leaving halos around high-contrast edges.
• When preparing for the sides of a gallery wrap, you need to add 0.5 inches to the dimensions as you requested with your print options. For example, if you ordered a gallery wrap with a 1.5-inch depth, and you want black sides, the width of the black border you submit should be 2.0 inches at 300 dpi (600 pixels). We trim a small amount off the print, and so the transition to black will occur a little way around the edge so the black won't be seen from the front. Dimensions of the submitted image minus sides of gallery wrap must match the ordered print size. Contact us for instructions if you are ordering a flat wrap, floating wrap, or wrap for metal or wood frame.

No guarantee on colors and brightness without proofs

We recommend that you request a free printed proof. We guarantee that the final print will have the same colors as the proof. However, if you are not color managed and do not approve proofs, then the print may not look like the image on your monitor, so in this case we cannot reprint for free if the colors are not right for you. If we do the image preparation, then the burden is on us to make an acceptable print, and then we do guarantee you will like the colors and brightness.

Acceptance of your submitted images

If any of the above requirements are not met, we will ask you to fix them and resubmit or pay the full price for your print. If we feel that the colors, brightness, or contrast are not right, we will give you recommendations, and you will have the option to resubmit.

Questions?

Contact us.