Guidelines
Below are some basic guidelines to help you get your images printed. You will also find extended explanations and helpful hints on the Blog page. If you have any further questions, are not sure about any aspect of having your images printed or our products we are here to help. Simply use the enquiry form or email us if you prefer.
File format
For optimum print quality high quality JPEGs are fine provided the image is near or at the required print size.
When exporting your final image for print, we recommend using a Photoshop compression level of 10 (11 & 12 offer no quality benefit but will increase file size) and a quality setting of between 93 and 100 when exporting from Lightroom.
Edits and adjustments to files carried out in LR or Photoshop should be done using RAW, Tif or PSD formats. It is best practice to only export to JPEG once editing is complete and the file is ready to submit for printing.
If you would like us to resize the file for larger prints then we recommend you send the file in Tiff format, please note this may mean a much larger file for upload.
Image Resolution
Images should ideally be sized at the required print dimensions and at 300ppi (pixels per inch).
For large prints (A2 upwards) we can resize the file for you however if the file does need resizing it is better to send it in Tiff format and not Jpeg
Minimum resolution is 240ppi
Colour Settings
For the best results you should export your images in Adobe RGB. We also accept files in sRGB but unlike some studios our print machines can print a much larger range of colour than sRGB (up to 40% more).
sRGB colourspace is commonly used for display on tablets and mobile devices (i.e. Facebook). If you are processing your files in RAW then it is better to process in Pro RGB or Adobe RGB. If you shoot in Jpeg, set your camera to Adobe RGB.
Bit Depth
If you don't know what 'Bit depth' refers to, move on as life is too short... but if you are curious... LR and Photoshop ACR and other RAW processing software allow users to export their files in either '16 Bit' of '8 Bit' formats. 16 bit files contain much more colour and tonal information which is useful when editing your files, however they also make your files much larger. Once all edits are complete the bit depth of the exported file for print should be set to 8, a 16 Bit file offers no advantage at this stage.
File Naming
You do not need to re name you files, our system will automatically append the relevant order number to them.