16X20 print, prepare

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  • 11-11-2004, 11:54 PM
    Scourh
    16X20 print, prepare
    Hello everyone!
    I wanted to ask if anyone has a technic in preparing a photo for a 16X20 print using Photoshop, with a studio, RAW file with a Canon 10D, this might include Resolution, cropping, sharpness, etc.
    I'm printing on a minilab, so any calibration advice would be nice.
    Scourh.
  • 11-15-2004, 12:00 PM
    another view
    Re: 16X20 print, prepare
    Calibrating your monitor is a good idea and if you don't do it I'd definately start with a smaller (less expensive) print to experiment with. An 8x10 would be the same proportion otherwise you can increase canvas size in Photoshop to make a 4x5 print on 4x6 paper with black or white edges on the long size - that way you see what you're getting. When the small print looks good then you're in good shape.

    Depends on the minilab but I wasn't aware that any of them went to 16x20. Usually when I do a print on a Fuji Frontier I just use 300dpi because I already have enough resolution from the original file to do that. I've made 16x24 prints with great results on an Epson 9600 at 240dpi but haven't really experimented with other settings. The last one I did was before I had Photoshop CS, so using PS7 I increased 10% several times until I had the file size I needed. I hear that interpolation in CS is better so the extra steps may not be necessary; increase it once to what you need (ex: 16x20 at 300 dpi) and the results will be just as good if not better.

    If this is a good place to deal with (concerning quality of work), you might want to ask what they recommend. They will probably have some examples that you can look at too. Personally, my bigger prints have started as SRGB jpeg files, and I haven't worried about profiling for the printer/paper being used. Calibrating my monitor took care of 90% of the inconsistencies I was having (Monaco Optix, cheapest one for monitor only) but I imagine that nine of the last 10 percent would be taken care of if I figured out how to do ICC stuff! ;)