Uploading, resolution, and that stuff

stanoz · November 14, 2005

I shoot with a Canon 20D.
What resolution (72, 96, 300) should I use when I upload to SM to ensure that if a photo is purchased, at any size up to the maximum size offered, it will be printed at its best possible quality?
Should I leave it at the 8meg size?
Also, should I do a "save for web" in CS, at what percent quality (20,60,...80), after I do my adjustment to my raw format?
This is extremely confusing!
Thanks,
Stan

flyingdutchie · November 14, 2005

stanoz wrote:

I shoot with a Canon 20D.
What resolution (72, 96, 300) should I use when I upload to SM to ensure that if a photo is purchased, at any size up to the maximum size offered, it will be printed at its best possible quality?
Should I leave it at the 8meg size?
Also, should I do a "save for web" in CS, at what percent quality (20,60,...80), after I do my adjustment to my raw format?
This is extremely confusing!
Thanks,
Stan

Resolution:
The maximum number of pixels.
Don't worry about the dpi/psi. The actual dpi depends on the size of the actual picture that the purchaser orders. For prints, the originally uploaded picture will be used (not one of the smaller sizes).

In Photoshop, make sure that your picture has a sRGB profile before saving it as a JPEG and uploading it to Smugmug.
For correct colors, be sure to calibrate your monitor and to use soft-proofing with the ezprints.icc (file is downloadable somewhere from smugmug) before saving your JPEGs.

The JPEG quality: The higher the better. But the higher, the larger the files are and that will increase your upload times.

Andy · November 14, 2005

with Anton.

Also DO NOT use Save For Web - use "save as" instead and always

All the best,

stanoz · November 14, 2005

flyingdutchie wrote:

Resolution:
The maximum number of pixels.
Don't worry about the dpi/psi. The actual dpi depends on the size of the actual picture that the purchaser orders. For prints, the originally uploaded picture will be used (not one of the smaller sizes).

In Photoshop, make sure that your picture has a sRGB profile before saving it as a JPEG and uploading it to Smugmug.
For correct colors, be sure to calibrate your monitor and to use soft-proofing with the ezprints.icc (file is downloadable somewhere from smugmug) before saving your JPEGs.

The JPEG quality: The higher the better. But the higher, the larger the files are and that will increase your upload times.

Thanks for the info---will the jpeg quality have an effect on the quality of the printed picture???
Thanks.
Stan

Andy · November 14, 2005

stanoz wrote:

Thanks for the info---will the jpeg quality have an effect on the quality of the printed picture???
Thanks.
Stan

Yes.

If shooting in JPG mode only (no raw), use size Large on your 20D.

If shooting in RAW and outputting a jpg, when you are done, use SAVE AS and chose 10, 11, or 12, your choice - 10 is ample for most purposes, many use 12 anyhow.

jfriend · November 14, 2005

stanoz wrote:

I shoot with a Canon 20D.
What resolution (72, 96, 300) should I use when I upload to SM to ensure that if a photo is purchased, at any size up to the maximum size offered, it will be printed at its best possible quality?
Should I leave it at the 8meg size?
Also, should I do a "save for web" in CS, at what percent quality (20,60,...80), after I do my adjustment to my raw format?
This is extremely confusing!
Thanks,
Stan

See posts here and here and here for previous answers on dgrin to this question. The short answer is the same as flyingdutchie offered. Ignore it. Provide smugmug with the maximum number of native (non-scaled) pixels possible and let the printer handle it from there.

If you want high quality prints, you should select JPEG compression level 10 in Photoshop when generating JPEGs. Most people seem to believe that a level higher than 10 doesn't help your print at all (though the file size balloons quickly) and at levels lower than 10, certain types of images start to degrade.

flyingdutchie · November 14, 2005

stanoz wrote:

Thanks for the info---will the jpeg quality have an effect on the quality of the printed picture???
Thanks.
Stan

Short answer:
Yes.

But above 10, the visual improvements are hardly noticeable.

But more important is to post-process your pics correctly:
-Calibrate your monitor (preferrably, use hardware such as EyeOne, etc.)
-For ezprints (used by smugmug), set your working-space color-space to sRGB
-Edit your pic (color correcting, sharpening, etc)
-Download the ezprints.icc and do 'soft-proofing' using this profile.
-When you pic looks good, save as JPEG, with highest quality in full resolution with the sRGB profile attached (happens automatically if you shot your pics in sRGB).

Uploading, resolution, and that stuff

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