Your Print Quality - Sale Issue? Help Is Here

Here, here!

There are tons of artists with wonderful work...but blurry shots that show outside edges of the painting, frames...lopsided.

If I were looking for art to bu...any one of those things would make me keep looking instead of stopping to buy.

To tell the truth, if I were looking for art to buy and saw problems like those, I'd definitely keep looking, but on a different site. By the same token, any buyer whose transaction is delayed or cancelled because the site discovered at the last minute that the image wasn't suitable for printing, isn't going to be a happy bunny at all.

I've argued before that all uploads should be checked by FAA for printability before being offered for sale (for the sake of the site's professional reputation, if nothing else), but the response has always been that they don't have the resources - maybe it's time for a rethink in that department?

I agree and fully support Beth's suggestions. I would consider it a slap in my face should I be contacted to upload a replacement. I am constantly fine tuning my gallery and deleting poor quality (and I have some) photos. Fortunately, I have yet to be asked to upload a better quality photograph for any of my sales. We all make mistakes, but best we catch and fix them before they sell. As artist's we have to remember we are editor's as well.

A La Bump

Thanks Beth i'll have to go look again at mine. Haven't been notified yet of needing a new upload but doesn't hurt to check.

I have some up that are AWFUL but they are not for sale :)

I'm currently in the process of removing options to print and fixing the images. This is my first time on a POD site and I didn't realize that some of my images were as blurry as they were until they were put up here. It would have been helpful for FAA to inform me at the uploading stage. I had lost my photoshop when my computer crashed a while back so I was limited on what I could do to my images. Installing the new photoshop today, in fact. A lot of work ahead for me, but I'll fix it. Some day, I'll be able to get back to painting. Sheesh! The learning curve is killing me! :-)

Hello Beth.........the image quality seems to drop quite a bit when I upload them to this site for some reason.......the same photos on my Deviantart site look so much clearer and cleaner.

Beth and Sean have said that images should be sharp, not blury , for FAA to print them.
While this is generaly true, it is presumtious.
Who decides?

I have developed a ( unique) soft focus technique, of printing , for some of my photographs,
and feel that is instrumental in the "appeal" of these images.

I have received many compliments on the technique, and would NOT be happy, or in agreement,
with being told they are not print worthy. I have sold some privately.

(see my "High Country","A lonely river","Rocks in Lake", and " Winter Forest"). ect.

This is how I wish to sell them, and (presumably) how customers wish to buy..

Rein that is a pretty obvious statement really. IF you r images are meant to have soft focus then that will show and is not what we are talking about.
For instance if someone puts up a photo of a canvas painting then you should see the paint and the canvas texture. Quite often the image is not sharp or clear enough to see that.

A photo that is meant to be of of focus or slightly blurred is not what we are talking about here

Beth,
Who decides? what are (their) criteria ( and qualifications)

Beth,
I notice that most of my pics can't be blown up to large sizes. Is that an indication that my pictures are blurry? Also, my file sizes tend to be over 2mg, and I've been assuming the larger the file, the better the print. Is that accurate?

Beth, you and Sean declared "blury prints will not be printed"

In the corporate world, such " blanket" statements are not subject to judgement.

we can only HOPE that FAA staff has the latitude.
.

No that is not always accurate. You can have a really bad quality large image.

If the full res doesnt work it normally means the image is small pixel-wise. Could be a good quality image though.

Rein the fact that they are the printers and have been in the business for years. Anyone can see normally by looking at a picture.

Ok here you are, let's try an example....



Take a look at this picture (which is amazingly good ;) LOL)

It is ok to look at normal size on the page and looks like it could be alright as a prints, sort of although you can tell the colouring is off... should be white, so that is a no-no for printing. It would not give an accurate print really but, colour is choice HOWEVER, if you click the full preview you can see clearly that it is not ok for printing, besides the bad colouring......

If your images look like that then they are not printable. This is completely different from this



Where the blurring and softness is meant.

Rein,

Don't worry - we definitely know the difference between an image that is intentionally blurry and one that is blurry due to a photography problem (i.e. out of focus, no tripod, etc.)

Sean

Rein,
I can also attest that FAA will work with you to get a decent print.
But the last thing you want is to have to pull things out and reshoot them in a rush, to get a good image over to them.
I would like to know that once something is in my gallery, I never have to worry about it again, ever. Alas, two years and I'm still working on it, lol.

I am more comfortable , hearing this from Sean.

Yes I knew you would be :)

Alas, two years and I'm still working on it, lol.

I hear you, Patricia. Same here.


Jani F. Some day, I'll be able to get back to painting.

Amen!

If only I could afford a 50 megapixal Camera!

The images I took that are print ready and have been sold with no fuss, were on a 5mp camera. I take mine outside in late afternoon

Just in case nobody has seen this I am bumping it up again.

Please check your full res previews, or even better, check your images at 100% on your computer. If any marks, bnlurriness, sharp spots, pixellation is there.. if you cannot see the canvas under a canvas painting, or the texture of the paint strokes, then it probably is not print ready.

It is the artists responsibility to make sure their own images are print ready.

I can only second what Beth says...bump!

Question; When you hit the full res preview button at what DPI or PPI are you previewing the image on the computer screen*

The reason I ask is that some images that might show some issues at 72 or 100 PPI on a high res view will print wonderfully at prints done at 150 or 200 DPI. I know a couple of my images will not print at 40"x30" but look absolutely spectacular at 20"x30". I have some others that may show artifacts from both the camera and editing at "full res" but will print wonderfully at half that.

I look at each image before I upload and do my own tests as to how large they will print well. Of course the problem is clients will base judgement on how clear the image is based on the green box when that may or may not be true at the sizes offered for sale. That's OK as most of my images are fine even high res but hand held macros and snake shots generally will not work at a full res printing.

Am I OK with that thought process......

JC

*Question mark key doesn't work.

Example uploaded today.

As far as I know, and I am sure Sean will put me right during the week, you see whatever you uploaded. You see your own image at whatever you uploaded it at.

However when I look at yours it looks awfully sharpened.

Abbie and Mike - Thanks very much for your time and for checking. And so fast! Glad it was good news on printability.

Mike - You are absolutely correct about the price. There are definitely cheaper scanners out there, and $200 was more than I wanted to spend, being a real cheapskate. But this was one of only two models that I could find that would scan up to 11 x 17 without having to use stitching software, and one of only a handful that will print up to 13 x 19.

Since most of my paintings and drawings are in the 11 x 14 range I wanted to be able to place them on a scanning bed without having to worry about parts of the original being crunched/bent/creased to get it to lie flat over the edges of a standard scanner (such as happens when using my free scanner that still apparently does a fine job for smaller items). And even if I could manage to not damage the original, there is still the stitching step which I wanted to avoid.

If someone has a similar situation and can spring for the larger bed scanner, it seems like it could simplify their uploading compared to photographing the work. I place it on the bed, choose a resolution that will not exceed the file size limit, use auto exposure, and press scan. I then upload that file directly, no other adjustments needed. There was a bit of a learning curve on the scanner software, but not too bad. Mostly because there are tons of options that I tried out but have no need to use. I never did master the learning curve on getting the lighting right for photographing my work, and the scanner, though twice as large as my free scanner, takes up less space than a good lighting system would.

The expense of the larger scanner/printer is definitely not for everyone, but the frustration it saves me is worth it (and my husband is now totally attached to it because it also photocopies his 11 x 17 sheet music).

Thanks again Abbie and Mike for your help.

After some print issues, anyone care to say if this would print at full size? This hasn't sold but I'm just curious.



The intent was to have the inside of the crater be sharp with the mountains softer. It's already been sharpened a touch but wondering if it would get flagged as not printable?

I'm mostly asking because there was a will not print email for a different image with a pretty sharp focus in the center that got softer toward the edges. The bottom edge of the photo was about 4 feet from the camera while the top edge was probably anywhere up to a mile.

I used to sharpen everything more but then it seemed like they looked sort of fake/over-processed so I stopped but now maybe they are not sharp enough so would like to try to find the sweet spot.

there's some aberration in the sky and mountain edges you might want to fix, but otherwise i see no real issues. there's also a touch of noise in the sky. i don't think it would stop printing, but i would fix it anyway, because they seem to change their rules on a whim.

---Mike Savad

It looks acceptably sharp to me. I doubt there would be a problem.

Abbie, in your very first post, you listed this as one problem: "Have you got pixels showing (little blocks and uneven lines caused by enlarging images)?"

I keep hearing that enlarging images is the reason for pixelization, but I find that it also happens at the point of one single step that the image just can't handle. I've had problems with one of my San Francisco images in which the original was thick with fog. Later it became one of my top images, but it was lost when images disappeared on FAA. Sadly the proper image was not replaced.

Now I write down every single step in my editing process, and I check after each one to see whether or not it has introduced a problem. Saturating an image caused pixelization in one case, but I had merely added a saturation of 10. Nothing unreasonable.

Also, I have NEVER uprezzed (increased the size of) an image. So rather an assume that someone has done that, I suggest we also consider that the image has been overprocessed in some way, and probably inadvertently. Certain images are too fragile to handle many changes. This particular thick-fog image fell into that category.

While serving on a photography jury last week, I encountered the same thing in someone's image shot on a dreary day in Europe. Nice image, but I think the processing was just too much for the conditions of the day and I spotted an area of pixelization.

yes indeed. I just keep stressing again and again the enlarging issue as we get SO many people do it. They keep thinking they HAVE to offer the larger sizes so up goes the sizes on the images. Problems with the actual editing comes down the list of things that are wrong. It is nearly always the enlarging people do

You are quite right though that it can also be that

What was the name of the image you did not get back?

Connie, I think the type of file degradation you are talking about is called artifacts, particularly noise. It is not the same as the blockiness and step patterns caused by enlarging. Shooting in fog can bring out noise. So does increasing saturation. And 10% is not a little. That's why for me it is the upper limit. Others may use more, I know. Careful and selective noise reduction may help noisy fog images.
I hope you have you original. One thing I do is save a Jpeg copy in a separate folder of every image I upload to FAA. Then I upload from there. If there is a Tiff I save that too. And of course I keep the originals in the original folder made when I transferred them from the camera.

I'm in an awkward position as someone placed an order but the print quality is dubious again.
I was told to rephotograph but can't because the original has a small tear I have just spotted,so I have attempted to slightly alter the image and hope it works..other than that I will have to forgo the sale which is sad but I'm past caring anymore.
Every piece of art will be stuck on preloved.co.uk and sold for a tenner,because I am up to my back teeth with websites now.
I give up !!

@cythia - here's the issue. i looked at many of your images. and while the thumb looks sharp, they all looked like they were doubled in size. which means this will happen again and again unless you start fixing them now. and if you don't have the original, you can run it through a painter program.

if you still have the original painting, you can scan it in, or photograph it, then pay i think angela vick does editing for a small fee and maybe she can repair the damage so it could go through. i saw the post about losing it, but you still may able to save that sale and others. i suggest to scan all the work in, or this will just repeat over and over.


---Mike Savad

Thanks Mike..the painting is now in the bin but I will definately try to follow your lead when I am a little happier and not so weary.
Bless your heart & thanks again
xx

Bump

Uppp

I am making a poster in Photoshop.
new file:
width 20 inches
height 24 inches
Resolution 720 pixel /inch
color mode Labcolor
Depth 16 Bit
Background Transparent

After placing Pen and ink drawing files scanned at 720.
Illustrator AI vector images rasterized
and merging the layers, I arrive at a file size of 1.39 Gigs.
Saved as a PSB file.
I send this file directly to printer. The printers resolution is 720 DPI-wonderful.
One could say I'm printing this poster 0ne to one.
I will have to down-sample the file size to upload to a web's 25 MB limit.
Down-sampling from 1.39 Gigs @ 720 ppi to 72 ppi with a max file size of 25 MB is a lot of down-sampling for this file - better down than up.
I now have a tiny optimized for the web PNG file of my poster that is 25 MB, in size.
I do a web preview of the png and you bet it needs adjustments, levels and curves ... especially ,as there's a whole lot of compression going on in this re sampled file.
Adjusted and uploaded- done.
Wow! this PNG file viewed on my laptop , looks nothing like the PSB file version viewed on my workstations monitor, which is to be expected. And due to differences in PNG formatting the png file looks a little different on the website, also to be expected. The point here is the file was previewed and adjusted before uploading.
Many painters will spend a long time on a work and then photograph the painting all wrong, which is self defeating and degrading to the image in both mediums.
I often wonder why so many painters do this and the only reason I can think of is cost. Hey, it's just a POD site and the Good Humor truck has just arrived.

This thread had closed but we have reactivated it as we are still sending away images that could be sold if not for the quality of the upload.

bump

BUMP

hello, I just joined and uploaded my first images on FAA today. I took the photos in RAW format and did everything that I read, and I changed the dpi to 300 and made sure it looked good when 100% the zoom. I'm a little worried that the image quality still isn't good enough for printing, and would appreciate it very much if someone could take a look and let me know what they think! I would rather do everything over again than be notified that someone purchased my art and it couldn't be printed.

I'm extremely new at all of this and would appreciate any advice! thanks in advance! :)

Bump

Bump

Abbie where is the thread that shows all your examples in it? I forget the name of that one to bump it.

The link is at the bottom of my top post :)

Hello everyone :)

I am very happy to have made my first sale today and am anxious to upload more images to my page. I've been looking around the group for answers to the following but can't seem to find them so hope you won't mind me asking again if they have already been shared elsewhere...

Could anyone please advise on the best quality for uploading to FAA? I don't want my buyers to be disappointed / would like to ensure my images are of good quality printed.

Is there a minimum pixel size you would suggest?
Would PNG or 300 dpi be preferable to standard jpg files?

Thank you in advance for any help

this is just what I need help with

My paintings are small and I have been scanning them and wonder if scanned artwork is acceptable rather than photographing it? And if so, what is optimum number of bytes, etc. Thanks so much.

Once, I was told that my painting was not good for the size that customer ordered. I did loose the sale; but, I've learned a lot. Since that day, I do not oversize my pxls. I mostly scan my artworks now into a super high resolution printer. Works great!

Cheers!
Irina
http://www.artirina.com/

Need help in sales of my work. I have two platforms. I use either Android or iPhone to take and edit my pictures, and I use Nikon for normal pictures. Would love some advice in ways I can increase sales with the pictures I currently have uploaded. Thank you....below is one I took with android and edit with multiple photo editing apps.

i think you should use a PC to edit things. there is already a ton of advice how to get sales, a few are open right now.

because this is a display thread, and not sales thread we can't go there.


this however is too noisy to print, you can see the noisy pretty easily and its very small. people usually buy larger things.

beyond that you have to market yourself.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com