Printing to a JPG from Lightroom?

MDE Photography

My DNG files are 3872 x 2592.
In Lightroom I created an 8 x 10 template in the PRINT module.
Then I printed a photo to a JPG file at 300 ppi.
The resulting file was only 2.5 MB.

For best printing the lab I am using - Bay Photo - says the following image size is best:

8x10, 2000x2500, 14.4 MB

I cannot find a way to "print" a larger file.

Can anyone help?

Thank you...
<table id="datatable" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td align="center" valign="top">
</td><td align="center" valign="top">
</td><td align="center" valign="top">
</td></tr></tbody></table>

ivar

If you are not going to print yourself, don't 'print' your image. Export it around 95% (or 100 if you like) as a jpg.

Welcome to Dgrin See the link in my siggy on how to do most anything here

arodney

You are saving out a JPEG from the Print module? You have no real options over the control here of that JPEG. But if you use Export, you have lots of options for size and quality.

Pixoul

MDE Photography wrote: »

The resulting file was only 2.5 MB.

For best printing the lab I am using - Bay Photo - says the following image size is best:

8x10, 2000x2500, 14.4 MB

First, Export has more options as has been mentioned above.

Next, the 2.5 MB size would be the compressed file size on disk. Since labs accept many image formats they're referring to the uncompressed size of the image. For an RGB image (3 colors), 2000 x 2500 x 3 = 15000000 or ~15 MB: http://www.google.com/search?q=15000000+bytes+to+megabytes

For the full explanation: http://www.scantips.com/basics1d.html

colourbox

Since the format details are not specified, the file size has no meaning, really. Making an image 14.4 MB gives you totally different results depending on if you exported JPEG High Quality, JPEG Low Quality, TIFF Zip, TIFF LZW, TIFF Uncompressed, 8-bit, 16-bit, RGB, CMYK...

pathfinder

This is an interesting discussion. I have a print of this image I shot with a 1DsMkii in June 2008. The print measures 20 x 30 inches in size, and the quality is such that you can see individual sand grains falling in the light stream from above.

My print was done by Smugmug's online print collaborator -EZ Print - The file is 3156 x 4734 pixels in size as stored in my smugmug gallery, which is equal to 3156x4734 =14,940,504 pixels. The size of the file online at Smugmug, that I uploaded, is only 5.8 Mbytes, as seen here http://pathfinder.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=74318837&ImageKey=WRKEJ


I have a print of this file of White Sands that is 2474 x 3711 pixels from a 5DMkII. I had it printed on metallic paper by Bay Photo at 24 inches by 36 inches and it is virtually grainless as well. 2474 x 3711 pixels is 9,181,014 pixels, but the files as a jpg is only 2.99 Mbytes in size, as can be seen in the exif data associated with the file.


An 8 by 10 print at 300 ppi is 8 x 300 x 10 x 300 = 7.2 megapixels, but in sRGB most files will be substantially smaller than 7 Mb when saved as a jpg at quality level 10. While a printer may demand 15 Mbytes for an 8 x 10 print, rarely do they really need a file that large.

I have never really understood precisely what Print to jpg is for.

I agree that Exporting a jpg from Lightroom is more appropriate for control of image quality sent to a printer.

Most online discussions of prints suggest 300 ppi is needed for quality images, and I generally agree with that. For large images, however, that is not always an absolute, as my images discussed above demonstrate.

colourbox

I thought the point of Print to JPEG in part was so you could specify things that aren't in the Export dialog. For example if you want to output a file to a specific printer profile, which some labs may ask you do to but Export won't let you do since you can only pick from the four profiles that are there. But I don't use Print to JPEG much.

arodney

colourbox wrote: »

I thought the point of Print to JPEG in part was so you could specify things that aren't in the Export dialog. For example if you want to output a file to a specific printer profile, which some labs may ask you do to but Export won't let you do since you can only pick from the four profiles that are there.

You can specify an RGB output profile in Export (at least since version 2).

colourbox

Thanks...I don't know how I missed that "Other..." choice for so long! OK then I guess Print to JPEG comes down to being able to use the print layouts?

arodney

colourbox wrote: »

Thanks...I don't know how I missed that "Other..." choice for so long! OK then I guess Print to JPEG comes down to being able to use the print layouts?

Yes. Primarily the idea is to utilize those layouts (proof sheets come to mind).