If you’re thinking of printing your images with us at Resolve Photo, we suggest the best file format to use for print is either TIFF or PSD. There’s a coupe of reasons. First, your image hasn’t been compressed. You’ll get finer details and smoother gradients in your print with uncompressed files. Second, both TIFF and PSD support layers. If you’d like us to review and make any minor adjustments prior to printing, leaving your layers intact will help us get you a better print. With intact layers, we can get a better understanding of your workflow and can make suggestions and edits keeping your workflow in mind. TIFF and PSD files will be large. That’s okay with us.

Jpegs aren’t ideal for one main reason. The files are compressed. Every time you edit and save your file as a jpeg, your file and resulting print will lose quality. If your original capture was a jpeg, save it as a TIFF or PSD so you can make edits without adding more compression.

RAW files are a great way to start your workflow. Capture in RAW is the best way to get every bit of detail and colour information from your camera. But, the file isn’t ideal for printing. You’ll need to make adjustments to get your image to where it needs to be visually. Rarely are RAW files print-ready as-is. When you are done editing in your RAW processor, remember to export as a TIFF or PSD and you’ll be set.

​​If this is all too much, we can assess and set up your file properly for print. And we’ll let you know if something isn’t quite right.

The colour space of your file will have a big impact on the quality of your print. When printing your images with us at Resolve Photo, we recommend using AdobeRGB as your output colour space for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a big colour space. There are a lot of colours in AdobeRGB. A lot more than sRGB. That will mean you’ll have better gradients, and your colour won’t block up in your finer details. Second, A nice photo editing monitor will be able to display all of the AdobeRGB colour space. You’ll be able to visualize your image on screen and get a really predictable print. High end pigment printers will also have a colour gamut that closely falls in line with the AdobeRGB colour space. It doesn’t align perfectly, but it’s a close relationship.

The sRGB colour space is smaller than the AdobeRGB colour space. There are a couple of benefits in using sRGB. First, sRGB is pretty much the default in the colour world. It works well for web, smartphones, and most monitors. Most monitors and devices will be able to show you the majority of the sRGB colour space. You won’t have to invest in a pricier photo editing monitor to be able to visualize the image properly on screen (when calibrated). Most high end printers will be able to easily print all the colour contained in an sRGB file. But… you leave a lot of colour on the table. AdobeRGB contains roughly 25% more colour than sRGB.

For those working in ProPhoto, you don’t need an Instagram post for any advice. Just keep in mind that the colour space is much bigger than can be visualized by any monitor or by the human eye (ProPhoto contains imaginary colours), and print results may be less predictable depending on your images’ colour palettes.

​​If this is all too much, we can assess and set up your file properly for print. And we’ll let you know if something isn’t quite right.

DPI vs PPI, why does it matter? It doesn’t really. Most of the time these two terms are used interchangeably. But, technically, pixels per inch describes the resolution of a digital image, and dots per inch describes print resolution.

​Digital images have two important values for resolution- the original pixel dimensions and the pixels per inch at print size. An original file with higher pixel dimensions will usually be able to be enlarged in print to a bigger size than an original file with lower pixel dimensions. For example, an un-cropped file from a 24MP camera will likely have pixel dimensions equal to something like 6000 pixels by 4000 pixels. By assigning a pixel resolution of 300 pixels per inch, that will result in a size of 20×13 inches. A 12MP original file will have pixel dimensions equal to around 4000×3000 pixels. If assigning the same pixel resolution of 300 pixels per inch, we have a size of 13×10 inches. Three hundred pixels per inch is pretty standard when setting up a file for print, but different pixel resolutions can be assigned, or you can up-res and down-res (rare cases) from the original dimensions if needed.

​If you’re looking to set up your own files for printing your images, think about the desired print size, and the pixels per inch at that print size. For example, if you’d like to print an 8×10 inch print, a fairly standard file spec would be 8×10 inches at 300ppi resulting in the file having pixel dimensions of 2400×3000 pixels.

​​If this is all too much, we can assess and set up your file properly for print. And we’ll let you know if something isn’t quite right.