Basic Tips for Top Quality Prints

Repost from old Forum Feb 2008

This topic can be quite extensive if you explore each of the areas in depth. However, it’s not necessary to go into great depth to start applying these tips today to insure you get the best possible prints from your digital images.

Get it Right in the Camera

Probably the most important thing you can do to insure that you have the ability to get the best possible prints from your image, is to get as much right in the camera as possible. Make sure to do the following when shooting to capture your best:

- Nail the exposure
- Nail the White Balance via Custom White Balance to insure accurate color
- Use a tripod, monopod or fast enough shutter speed to eliminate camera shake
- Watch your focus, make sure it’s sharp. Unintended soft images can make for unattractive prints even if everything else is good.

Minimize Adjustments in Photoshop or other Image Editors

Avoid thinking or saying to yourself, "Oh, I can fix that later in Photoshop". Maybe you can, but if you shoot 500 images, do you really want to adjust each one? Also consider this, ANY adjustment you make in your favorite image editor has the potential for reducing your image quality. Reduced image quality translates to lower print quality. Basic things such as spot removal, cleaning up a blemish, etc. are usually fine if done correctly. The following changes on the computer can significantly reduce quality if care is not used:

- Color Adjustments of any kind
- Exposure / Brightness / Contrast Adjustments
- Other Miscellaneous Image Adjustments
- Excessive Cropping

Now understand, I'm not saying you shouldn't use Photoshop or some Image Editor, they are very powerful tools and I wouldn't be doing digital without one. However, just be careful and be away of the possible issues it can case and the time it can waste if you use it as a crutch to fix would you could have prevented. Do you want to be a Photoshop wizard, or a Great Photographer?

Let the Lab do what they do best

Use a Pro Lab, or a lab that you know will look at and correct each image individually. They are experts, they do this every day, all day long and have much better software and equipment to determine correct color and adjustments than we do. Many consumer labs just let the machine automatically determine what changes to make based the system settings to get acceptable results for the average image. The problem with this is that some color and lighting situations can throw the machine off. A skilled lab technician looking and adjusting each image will insure you get the best prints possible that your images can produce and the colors and exposure are accurate.

Many photographers, both Pro and Amateur , promote calibrating monitor, using the labs printer profile and calibrating to the lab so that you can adjust your images and have them print with no changes. This gives you ultimate control over what your final prints will look like. And, in some cases, it can save a little money if the lab discounts for uncorrected prints. This is a fantastic option, and there is nothing wrong with it at all, and is important if you are doing certain types of creative changes to image color, brightness, contrast, etc. for artistic reasons that may not be understood by the lab tech without special instructions. The problem is, it can be time consuming, complicated, and you must calibrate everything on a regular basis to insure nothing has changed. The other problem is, that if you go through all of the calibration steps, adjust your images and don’t tell them to leave corrections off of your images, or if they don’t allow that option, you have wasted all of your time calibrating, using profiles, and tweaking your images since they are going to adjust to what they think is correct. Some images may look like they do on your screen, and some may not. The point here is, a good lab will know what colors should look like for typical people shots, landscapes, etc. Let them do their job. And if you need to, give them special instructions.

The bottom line here is, this is what we had to do with film, but now with digital, we feel that we need to adjust each image. But that simply is not the case. If you want, to great! But if you are busy and more concerned with shooting pictures and enjoying prints, let the lab do what they’ve always done. Just because you CAN do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD.