23
Other users gave great answers about tuning your computer. However since you mentioned costco, this is a costco specific answer:
I've sent many prints to costco and had great luck. However not so much, before I realized that they were "auto correcting" images. One batch of birth announcements I had to send three times because the color was "off" no matter ...
21
In theory you can get more out of a negative than a print. However, in practice you are more likely to have access to a flat bed scanner that can give a wonderful scan from the print. A good film scanner is much more expensive and slower.
Considerations are similar for larger format film. But the costs go up even more, since the consumer-level film ...
21
I'm going to sort of disagree with all the other answers that talk about DPI or PPI rules of thumb, and suggest two different 'rules' (based on PPD, from another answer of mine)
Rule 1 — The 'Retina' rule
(aka the Pixels-Per-Degree (PPD) / 'better than your eye can see' rule)
This comes pretty much straight from Apple's Retina display designs, the idea ...
19
Since asking this question, and answering my own question I've faced the same problem so many times that I decided to write a website that solves it in a nice free way. You just upload a photo and then you can just download a jpeg ready to print at 6"x4".
www.oddprints.com
Output photo:
Sorry if this is a bit spammy, but it is a free website, no need to ...
17
Its better to scan the original slide/negative as its better to reproduce from as close to the source as possible meaning quality of reproduction goes down in this order:
The source (whatever it was you actually were shooting)
The slide/negative or digital camera file
A print of the photograph.
It essentially comes down to every stage of recording ...
17
Color laser printers, especially the big high end office printers, have the color capabilities you need for printing the company logo and the occasional Excel pie chart — but they are truly bad for printing photos.
But the good news is that almost any of the current generation of ink jet printers, even the cheap ones, are pretty good at printing photos - ...
15
OK... I used to run a print shop so i think i qualify to answer this.
Any print shop that can print 36x20 inhouse will be using a large format inkjet printer, id say Epson, HP or Canon.
Assuming the printer is reasonably new (IE < 4 years) it will almost definitely use good inks - in Epson's case UltraChrome. IF the print shop uses a constant feed ink ...
15
Yes.
And it usually depends how much you are paying.
The more you pay per print, the more likely there will be a human factor.
The big processors(wallmart etc) are unlikely to have the time or skill to go over files before print, its usually a plug-n-go system.
I used to run a print shop - and I specialised in 2 things, Bulk prints, and high end art / ...
15
Scan them. Now. Even relatively low end cheap scanners can capture more than the visible detail of a picture. Once you have a good digital representation, make a few backups on as long-lasting media as you can find, and put them in separate places. Give a copy to several relatives dispersed around the globe.
I know this doesn't preserve the original ...
13
Others have given advice on digitising which is very worthwhile and I would suggest this should be done as soon as possible. However, assuming that there is value placed on the photograph itself as a historic object not just the image it contains as a historic record then you will want to do your best to also preserve them as well as you are able.
The ...
11
Those appear to be codes from a Fuji Frontier automatic film processing lab machine or one of its older predecessors. Such machines were/are popular at mass retailers who did/do one hour photo processing and printing.
Users have some leeway in assigning what information is printed using the codes on the back of the print, so there is some variation ...
10
Printing a picture seems like it should be easy but there is a lot more involved when it comes to getting predictable colors from what you see on the screen to the print. The first step is calibrating your monitor. This ensures that your monitor is displaying colors correctly. You can purchase a calibrator from companies such as Colorvision (Spyder series) ...
10
The ISO standard, as explained in this document produced by X-Rite, a company that produces hardware and software used for color calibration, is to view prints in light that is at D50 (full spectrum centered at 5,000K) in terms of color temperature. In terms of intensity, around 2,000 lux (roughly equivalent to an overcast day) should be used for color ...
9
The viewing distance of an image is based on two factors; first is the diagonal image size and second are the pixels per inch required at that distance to give a sharp image.
Firstly the rough rule of thumb is that the viewing distance should be 1.5 to 2 times the diagonal length. This will give you an optimal viewing distance for the overall printed size ...
9
Stan Rogers and floqui covered problems of framing without glass - but I want to offer another alternative - frame without glass anyway, let me explain.
If those prints are one-of-a-kind or in any way can't be reproduced (or can't be reproduced without a lot of darkroom work) than this is irrelevant but if those can just be re-printed than you can trade ...
9
I have seen this before when printing on the wrong side of the paper.
Photo paper has a specific side that it needs to be printed on to keep the ink from spreading as only one side is usually prepared for printing. It is possible, however, to get double-sided photo paper.
If you are using matte paper, the whiter side will usually be the printing side, and ...
9
The scanning process shouldn't damage your prints in any perceptible way. If you were to scan them multiple (read hundreds) of times then there might be a noticeable effect.
I'd make sure you use a flatbed style scanner- not the document feeder, which can subject prints to mechanical stress. Even a flatbed requires some care if the prints are badly curled.
...
9
Water does not harm photographic paper. After all, it is soaked in different waterbased chemicals during developing and washed in clean water in the end. So you'll be quite safe removing the glass along with the photo from the frame and sinking them in good clean lukewarm water with a couple of drops of liquid soap. Do not try to pry the photo off the glass ...
9
The general position under UK law is that you can take any photos you like if you are on public property - this is how all those long-lens paparazzi are legal. As you note, almost all the UK is owned by someone, but public highways definitely count as public property; other areas may be more complicated. There are only a few gotchas to this:
It is illegal ...
8
I find that the Wikipedia article on Photogravure gives a good detailed overview of the subject. An easier to follow and shorter version can be found in this description of the process. Here's the summary of the technique:
Contact-print a positive onto a layer of gelatine sensitized in potassium dichromate. This hardens the exposed parts of the gelatine.
...
8
TLDR: Choose a print shop that provides ICC profiles.
Soft proofing is an important step for optimal results. If a shop doesn't share its profiles there are two reasons that come to my mind: lack of knowledge (very bad), or different printer types for the same printing product, meaning multiple orders could give different results even with the same ...
8
It is really complicated because you need to compare brands and systems with the same reference image.
This will be an answer just based on my little experience.
Paper
In general terms the paper must be coated. The quality of the coating has an effect too.
From less vivid to more vivid:
Newspaper. (Matte, not white)
Bond paper (normal office paper). (...
7
I would have thought that having a business card or similar discretely displayed below the print is a classy way to go about it.
7
The usual coating of photographic paper consists of (hardened) gelatin, together with a lot of other chemicals. Unless it has some extra protectional coating as described on this wikipedia image
the gelatin is directly exposed to the environment, and if you ever have used gelatin for baking or cooking, it gets a bit sticky when wet, and dissolves ...
7
Unless you're using album sleeves manufactured to being archival, they could be part of the problem, outgassing chemicals that deteriorate the images.
Also, unless the images were printed on archival-quality paper, the photos could be damaging themselves because many papers and processing techniques can leave the final result acidic, which can break them ...
7
The C-41 negative film process arose from movie film that was marketed just after World War II. Previously, processing color films was a far more arduous task.
To simplify, three dyes, cyan (blue-green), magenta (red-blue), and yellow are incorporated into the film during manufacture. The dyes in this film is incomplete. The three dyes are all missing the ...
7
The Canon EOS 5D Mark III has a resolution of 5760 x 3840 pixels, or 22.1 MP. It has a 3:2 (1.5:1) aspect ratio.
A2 sized paper is 16.5 x 23.4 inches (420 x 594 mm). It has a 1.414:1 aspect ratio.
This means we must either:
Leave blank spaces at the top and bottom of the paper to use the full image width on the width of the A2 paper. This would leave us ...
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