File too small to print?

Picturesofthelowcountry

I have placed many photos on my site most of which i cannot sell because the file is too small i use Lightroom 2.2 shoot with a Nikon D300 Raw+jpeg fine 300dpi. i need help understanding what i need to do to set the right settings to print and sell my prints.

Thanks
Mike

Candid Arts

Unless you are re-sizing the photos upon export from LR, the files should be plenty large. Or if you have cropped them WAY down to a smaller photo, that will also do it.

On a side note, you don't need to shoot RAW+JPEG unless you need the JPEG right away for whatever reason. It is just creating two files and I'm guessing you're using the RAW and editing them, followed by exporting into a JPEG file.

pathfinder

This image is probably full size from your camera at 4228 x 2848 pixels


But this image has been severely cropped prior to uploading at 630 x 425 pixels

When you are exporting from Lightroom, you get a choice in a dialogue box what quality level you want for export. Keep the quality above 85 and you should be just fine.

Picturesofthelowcountry

Candid Arts wrote:

Unless you are re-sizing the photos upon export from LR, the files should be plenty large. Or if you have cropped them WAY down to a smaller photo, that will also do it.

On a side note, you don't need to shoot RAW+JPEG unless you need the JPEG right away for whatever reason. It is just creating two files and I'm guessing you're using the RAW and editing them, followed by exporting into a JPEG file.

Thanks for you help

Should i shoot raw and covert to JPEG for exporting to Smugmug? i import all files through Lightroom every time, straight from the memory card.

Thanks

Picturesofthelowcountry

pathfinder wrote:

This image is probably full size from your camera at 4228 x 2848 pixels


But this image has been severely cropped prior to uploading at 630 x 425 pixels

When you are exporting from Lightroom, you get a choice in a dialogue box what quality level you want for export. Keep the quality above 85 and you should be just fine.

Thats odd because both images are straight from the camera into lightroom and exported into Smugmug! Whats up with that i dont know?

Thanks for your help
Mike

Candid Arts

Picturesofthelowcountry wrote:

Thanks for you help

Should i shoot raw and covert to JPEG for exporting to Smugmug? i import all files through Lightroom every time, straight from the memory card.

Thanks

Yeah, that'd be what I would suggest. Because it will still retain your original RAW file and take up less space on your memory card allowing you to shoot more before off loading.

pathfinder

Picturesofthelowcountry wrote:

Thats odd because both images are straight from the camera into lightroom and exported into Smugmug! Whats up with that i dont know?

Thanks for your help
Mike

I looked at the exif data on many of your jpg images in your galleries and they vary in size dramatically. Are you sure you are not cropping these images before uploading them? You cannot get to 640 x 450 without a major cropping of a D300 jpg or RAW file if they are being exported at 85% or greater as I discussed earlier.

Picturesofthelowcountry

pathfinder wrote:

This image is probably full size from your camera at 4228 x 2848 pixels


But this image has been severely cropped prior to uploading at 630 x 425 pixels

When you are exporting from Lightroom, you get a choice in a dialogue box what quality level you want for export. Keep the quality above 85 and you should be just fine.

Hello and thanks for helping me out I am new and needing to learn alot of things in regards to lightroom and smugmug.

I dont remember cropping either of those picture but many other i have cropped, which i think i am not going to go any more.

i will leave the cropping for the person who might want to buy a print!

Candid Arts

You can still crop with the D300 files. They are similar in size to my files from my Canon 50D, and I've cropped quite a bit on a few photos and still able to print large sizes.

The problem your having is re-sizing I think either upon Import or upon Export.

Check all your import and export settings and make sure they are what they are supposed to be.

If you look at the photo posted in a couple posts back of the Export window in LR, there are two pull down menus. One is File Settings and the other is Image Sizing.

Under the File Settings tab, I personally have mine set to:
Format:JPEG
Quality:100
Color Space:ProPhotoRGB
However you can do either sRGB, AdobeRGB or ProPhoto RGB.

Under the Image Sizing tab I have my Resolution set to 350 ppi (pixels per inch) and you do NOT want the "Resize to Fit" check box checked.

Hope this helps.