How Do I Know If Image Will Print Well?

you don't know. we can tell you if we think it will print. it basically should look clean and sharp up close. don't down scale or up scale it. leave the dpi alone. just send in the image the native size the camera is. if your camera shoots at 5000px, upload that. the dpi is only for the largest prints in that we can have large prints because they can print it at 100dpi. everything else is printed at other dpi's. don't worry about that stuff.


---Mike Savad

this one is too blurry to print, and there is a white border around the whole thing


so far all the ones i clicked on - aren't in focus.


this one is right on the line of being ok.


this one has compression issues


this one looks ok


i didn't look at the rest, but this is another blurry one.

the image should look sharp at a 100% closeness, as it does in real life

---Mike Savad

Don't change the PPI. That is very confusing advice. What she really means by that is you can use that dialogue box to change the PPI and see how large a print you would make. But it is not even that accurate, its just a close estimate. You could do that math in your head.

To see how well your image will print just look at it a 100% view or actual pixels, which is the same thing. Typically your monitor will be 72 DPi but that doesn't even matter as much as just looking at the actual 100% view. It should be reasonably sharp and free of excessive noise. It should be evenly lit and no background should be showing through. The signature should not be cut off and it should be away from the edge.

When photographing artwork and it is not sharp, redo the image. Only if that is not possible you can try and downsize the image and see how that looks. Sometimes you can make an acceptable smaller image. In that case you would reduce the pixel size (of a copy) to see how it looks. You could then upload that file or use the larger one and just not offer all the sizes. I would just upload the smaller one to make price changes simpler.

Thank you Mike.

Some of my images are not looking sharp to me. But, if you look very close to something, everything is blurry.

View you art from a normal viewing distance. I usually view a foot away for every foot of width. It should look pretty sharp. Ideally as sharp as your original. if it doesn't i may look closer to see if there is compression artifacts or noise degrading the image.

@ Bradford. Thank you. When I look in photoshop at "actual pixels" everything looks sharp...

@ Mike. Thank you for checking, Mike. Is there a way to improve problematic images?

@ Mike. I have no idea what that white border is on the first image. How to get rid of it?

scan it.

you have to crop it tighter for the white border


this was something i made a while ago, using crayon spatter. its scanned in. some of it has glitter in it so it does something funny with compression, but this will print, the edges are well defined.

if the image is soft the only way to fix it, is to reshoot it with a good camera, but a scanner is your friend here.


---Mike Savad

Mike, scanning is not possible. It's a large canvas and most of them are sold. Not long ago I was not thinking about prints quality, I was photographing painting to put it up for sale, that's all.

Another question, if I offer smaller print size of not very sharp image, will it work?

Mike, Bradford, anyone, can you please answer my last (for today :)) question?

If I offer smaller print size of not very sharp image, will it work?

Thank you!

if its sold - your out of luck. if you sell a print they will give the order issue and if you can't fix it - you lose the sale. you might be able to get away with smaller images, you'll have to contact customer service attn: DAWN - and she may assist you on the size she would let you print it at. but i'll bet it's pretty small. you can scan a large thing in pieces, or higher a photographer that specializes in that kind of thing.

you could also run that painting through another painter filter - like DA painter and it will become a new painting, but something sharper. or at least not blurry.

---Mike Savad

It can work sometimes to reduce the size. On my stock agency if the image is not real sharp they will request me to reduce the size so it is a fairly standard thing to do. How much really depends on the image. I suggest reduce them and check at a 100% view and decidefor your self if you are happy with the result. Sometimes its best to chalk it up to a learning experience. Other times you just have to do what you can and hope it passes and the buyer likes it like we all have to do. If you decide to resize, then you can come back in and ask for a review of the piece again.

Julia, I don't know how the print thing will work out, but I have to say, your work is amazing on the computer screen. The large original pieces must be awesome to see in person.
Les

Mike, Bradford, thank you again. I know I promised that it's my last question... but Mike, can you, please, tell me more about painter filter, DA. I never heard of it. Is it a program?

@ Digital Photographic Arts. Thank you so much for your kind comment.

Order one for yourself. Do you really want your working going out without knowing for sure what it will look like? Ordering a test print will give you peace of mind.

Hi Kevin, while I think it's a good idea, I can't order prints from all images and sizes to check if they good enough. I can't afford it :)

http://www.mediachance.com/dap/


---Mike Savad

Thank you Mike!