which format to use when getting d70 pics printed

[buckwild]

hey,
im still new to the d70, and went to the one hour photo lab today to get some pictures printed. When i got them back i noticed that several of them had lines that were jagged and looked different than on the computer. These were shot as raw and then set to 800x600 pixels in nikon editor and saved as a jpeg. My first question is did the setting it to 800x600 jpeg cause the distortion. Second what format is best for getting prints made. Also im trying to get the best understanding of how to make the best possible prints from my d70 pics, so please feel me in on any tips, tricks, and just basic understanding of how to properly get prints made from the digital images from the d70.

-thank you ahead of time for the help-
-shawn

[DownByFive]

I'm just curious why you saved the pics so small...If you want to get the best quality prints, you need to have the highest quality file (3008x2000 pixels for the D70). At the very least, save from RAW to the highest quality JPEG and use that for the prints. 800x600 is less than 1/2mp, so by using that size to get prints, you are essentially wasting that other 5.5 mp (a little bit oversimplified, but you get the idea...). Of course, you also want to consider the size ratio of your pics...if you are printing to 8x10, you'll have to crop the picture to a similar proportion...4x6 and 5x7 shouldn't really need cropping, since they pretty much match the D70's 3x2 pixel ratio.

[buckwild]

thanks for the reply i went and got some more prints yesterday, on those i saved one as jpeg and one as tiff and didnt downsize the resolution and yes big difference. as far as cropping does it cause any negative effects when done moderatly (average to get 8x10), also after cropping will i need to sharpen some.
-shawn

[another view]

First off, why RAW? I'd really recommend getting comfortable with jpegs before getting into that. RAW adds steps to the process and unless you're using a calibrated monitor you'll probably wind up with prints that look a lot different than what's on your screen. Yes, RAW is very beneficial in a lot of cases but not always necessary.

I recommend jpeg because that's the type of file that you'll have to use at most labs. Some pro labs may work with TIFF files (one local camera store with a big Epson will too) but again, it's probably not necessary in most cases. You also may hear about different color spaces (sRGB, Adobe RGB, etc) but stick with sRGB at least for now. I never use anything but this, and 99% of labs only work in sRGB too. If you want to use the other color spaces, you'll really need your own printer (and monitor calibration).

Like DBF says, the resolution you're saving them to is likely the cause of the problem. A general rule is 300dpi for printing (as debatable as any other "rule" in photography!) so that would be 1800x1200 for a 4x6 print. I'm guessing that this is the print size you're talking about. You could also get a 4x6 print made from the full 6mp camera resolution, but when you have resolution that low (800 at 6" = 133dpi) detailed areas might start looking funny.

And actually, 800x600 isn't the proportion of the camera - a DSLR is 2:3 ratio. This would be 800x533, etc. This is why a full size print would be 8x12, not 8x10. No problem making the crop, you'll just take a little off each edge, or one or the other. You can make prints much larger than that with care and experience with post processing.