PRINTING QUALITY PHOTOS

So, you finally got those perfect shots and the apartment or house looks amazing on your computer. You go to print it just to find that once transfered onto paper, the image lost it's luster. Here are is some helpful information for a flawless transition.

The first thing that comes to mind when you think of printing your favorite photo is whether the image has sufficient depth. There are questions of resolution, color and detail. Does your image have enough to be rendered perfectly on paper? After all, a photo print on paper would not look good if the image itself turns out to be pixellated, would it?

With apologies to professional photographers and photography enthusiasts, a large proportion of photos people want to get printed are actually spur of the moment candid shots rather than meticulously planned ones, especially the snaps of our near and dear ones. Knowledge of the subject and their moods, when they look best, and your presence in those special moments make you a great photographer of portraits of your loved ones. 

But not everyone has a pro level digital camera. A 10 MP digital SLR will shoot much better images than a 10 MP point and shoot. This is because the optics of an SLR lens is much better in quality. What if your favorite shot was taken in low light conditions with a point and shoot? Would it be possible to enlarge it to a 30” by 40” size and printed on to paper?

Photo enhancement for paper prints

This is where the photo editing part comes in. Professional printing facilities know that the image they receive from customers will almost certainly have to be enhanced digitally. 

The most important steps are color correction, enlargement, image touch up. A good image editing software can take care of all the issues.

Color correction:
Removing color casts is perhaps the most important step you have make when editing the image for paper print. A color cast is the tinted look a photograph assumes when shot under certain lighting situations like dawn and dusk, midday outdoors, cloudy, fluorescent light, incandescent light and so on.

In the pre-digital days, photographers used filters for color correction on camera. Nowadays, the versatile white balance function in digital cameras generally takes care of color casts. Be sure to select the white balance preset appropriate for the lighting situation. Custom white balance setting available in most DSLRs automatically reduces color casts if it is set in the existing lighting while pointing the lens on a white paper.

Color saturation may also need to be increased if an image is overexposed.

Enlargement:
If the image needs to be printed in a really large size, you will have to enlarge it. Image interpolation is a technique that is most effective to create large magnifications without compromising visibly on the quality of the image.

Changing image size and pixel count in most image editing software automatically enlarges the image by interpolation.

Touching up
Unwanted objects have the uncanny habit of peeping into our most beloved shots. Sometimes they cannot be cropped out without cutting off some important object, or even parts of the subject. Image editing techniques like stamp tool in Photoshop can be effectively used under such circumstances.

The blemishes on the subject’s skin in a portrait can be made to disappear; unwanted shadows can be filled; the subject can even be made to look younger!

And now here is a $1,000,000 Question: What is the maximum print size for best print?

What is the maximum print size of an image that will retain perfect image quality in a paper print?

This depends on a number of factors like exposure, illumination, camera shake, and resolution.

But a simple thumb rule will give you the idea about print size from your digital image. Just divide the image length in pixels by 70 and you will get the approximate print length in inches, and similarly for image width. So if your image size is 2800 pixels by 2100 pixels, you may expect an enlargement up to 40” by 30”.

The megapixel count of your camera too can give a rough approximation of the highest print size at good quality.
A 5 megapixel camera, with an image size of 2580 pixels by 2048 pixels, will give you a 36” by 28” print at most.
For a 7 MP camera (3072 pixels by 2304 pixels), the print size can go up to 44” by 32”.
A 10 MP camera (3648 pixels by 2736 pixels) can let you shoot photos for prints up to 48” by 40”.

10 Tips to shoot photos for printing on paper at high enlargements

All said and done, if the original image is good enough then the prospects of producing a perfect paper photo print are actually much brighter.

1. Always shoot at the maximum image size that your camera allows
2. Try to make sure that the shot is not over- or underexposed and the subject is evenly illuminated.
3. Try to pick the highest ISO rating. Your camera might choose a default ISO setting according to the situation; you need to use manual override and set ISO 100 – ISO 200.
4. Setting low ISO could result in camera shake. Make sure that Image Stabilization in your camera is turned on.
5. Use a tripod as often as possible. If it is not practicable in some situations, try to lean on a wall or a tree. Remember, your legs plus such a support makes a tripod!
6. Practice holding the camera steady. Holding your breath at the time of releasing the shutter is one good trick.
7. Use pre focus by half pressing the shutter release button. This reduces shutter lag, and also the chances of camera shake since shooting time is reduced.
8. If your camera has a viewfinder, whether optical or electronic, look through that instead of the LCD screen at the moment of shooting. Holding the camera away from the body is a less stable position than holding it close with elbows resting against your body. If you prefer using the friendlier LCD screen, switch to the viewfinder after composing the shot.
9. Shooting and providing the image in PNG, TIFF, RAW or PSD format wherever possible ensures that image quality is better. JPEG is the most popular format, but its image compression increases contrast and a lot of image data is lost.
10. Finally, if you want to make a perfect print from a picture you took with a digital camera set at the highest setting to create the largest files possible. 

And finally, here is the very “conservative” table, which tells you how to make 100% sure your picture will be on paper as good as it is on the screen of your computer:

MEGAPIXEL	IMAGE RESOLUTION	BEST PRINT QUALITY  (240 DPI)
0.3	640 x 480	2x3
0.8	1024 x 768	3x4
1	1366 x 768	3x5
1.3	1280 x 1024	4x5
2	1600 x 1200	5x6
3.2	2048 x 1536	6x8
4	2560 x 1600	6x10
5	2560 x 1920	8x10
6	3000 x 2000	8x12
7	3000 x 2300	10x12
8	3264 x 2448	10x13
9	3456 x 2592	11x14
10	3648 x 2736	11x15
12	4000 x 3000	12x17

Happy shooting!

Matt Barton,
Manager, RealDealNY.com

Faina Reinhardt,
CEO and Co-Founder of RealDealNY.com
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