[GeneGro]

Hello all,
Am considering having some photos printed as greeting cards. What type of file should I submit, jpeg, tiff, psd, etc. to the printer and what size file/resolution?
Thanks

[slipe]

The important thing is to crop the image to the right ratio of width to height and keep all of the pixels that are not removed in the crop. The resolution takes care of itself if your camera is 3Mp or higher for that sized print.

I don’t know what program you are using for image editing, but if you can’t preset a crop size that the program is constrained to I would use this freeware: http://ekot.dk/programmer/JPEGCrops/

Since you mention PSD you might have Photoshop or Elements. Select the crop tool and put the width and height of the final print in the boxes on top. Put NOTHING in the PPI box. Crop the image and you will have saved all of the pixels you didn’t crop off. You can look in Image > Image Size to see what PPI you ended up with. I wouldn’t mess with it as long as it is over 250 PPI. You don’t want to resample unless it is necessary.

Your best bet is TIFF as it is universal. If you are sending it online and have dial up or if there is a file size limit JPG works fine. But that is if and only if the program you save from gives JPG quality choices and you can select best quality. You absolutely can’t see the difference between a best quality JPG and a TIFF – especially in that print size.

[erick295]

Originally Posted by slipe

You absolutely can’t see the difference between a best quality JPG and a TIFF.

JPEG's are always compressed and they always lose some information. If the TIFF is uncompressed, it will look better. It may not be much of a difference, but there is some difference.

[buck52]

Howdy erick295

you are correct but, you should have not snipped the end from slipes post... "especially in that print size." he is correct in that respect...

buck

[slipe]

Originally Posted by erick295

JPEG's are always compressed and they always lose some information. If the TIFF is uncompressed, it will look better. It may not be much of a difference, but there is some difference.

Last year someone was commenting on how high a quality the super fine JPGs from his camera were. He said that he could resave one 20 times in Photoshop at best quality and still not develop compression artifacts. Since it is common knowledge that multiple JPG saves eventually caused artifacts I assumed he had just hit “Save” 20 times, which is really just a single save.

So I downloaded one of the super fine images from his camera and did 20 actual quality 12 saves. The first one was a “Save as” with a different filename so I also saved the original. Then I closed the image in Photoshop and opened the one I had recompressed once. I saved so I had a second compression and closed the image again. After doing that 20 times I compared the 20 saves with the original. I was amazed that I couldn’t see any difference. I might have slightly enhanced artifacts had I started with a lower quality JPG in the first place - I'm not sure.

That made me rethink the JPG thing. Quality 12 from Photoshop gives a little larger file than a 100% save from Irfanview, so best quality isn’t always the same from every program. The printing utility that came with my printer requires JPG files. I printed a 13 X 19 from a quality 12 Photoshop save and compared it with one directly from the Photoshop image. There was a slight color variation which had to do with the two program’s handling of color profiles. But even under a loupe I couldn’t see any quality difference. A quality 12 save from Photoshop is indistinguishable from a TIFF for any use I might have for an image. I still save everything as TIFF or PSD in case I have to make further enhancements and save multiple times. But I’m not sure it makes a big difference except for saving the layers.

I know there is a theoretical deterioration even with a quality 12. But within the context of this thread of printing a small greeting card, GeneGro will see absolutely no difference between a quality 12 Photoshop or Elements save and a TIFF.

[GeneGro]

Thank you all for the good feedback. I very much appreciate it, being a beginner.