Printing.....RAW/JPEG/TIFF/DPI/PPI....etc,etc......

tingting44

tingting44

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Martin
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hi guys, just looking into printing some of my pics for my mum of my kids, just wondering can you print RAW files (say if you take the memory card into boots self printing machines) or would you need to print in jpeg or tiff? i ended up putting my Small jpeg (hope they come out ok being the small jpeg files, i shoot RAW+S jpeg) pics on her memory card in the end as she only had a 512mb card, but be nice to know what you guys normal print (format wise)

just checked and on my small jpegs the DPI is 72 and on the RAW's its 240, so will it be ok to leave them as it is? or shall i change them all to 300DPI? (i heard 300dpi is ok for printing?)

i hope they come out ok being small jpeg files my mum will go mad at me if she prints them out and they are terrible quality, she dont want no big canvas stylee prints lol just small ones to put in her photo album, do you guys think they will come out ok being small jpegs

sorry to be a pain

all the best

Martin
 
The DPI figure is irrelevant when saving a file or looking at the figure via a program. When you print you need to divide the number of pixels along 1 side by the size of print that you want, that will give you the DPI figure you need to print at. Alternatively if you want to print at a certain DPI, say 300, you need to either divide the number of pixels along 1 side by 300 to get the size of print that will be produced or, multiply 1 side of the size of print that you want by 300 to get how many pixels are needed along that side, you can remove or add pixels by re sampling in most programs. All lengths should be in inches of course :).
For printing in high street, and most other places catering for amateurs, you need a JPEG. Whether the files that you have provided will be good enough depends on how many pixels there are, what the compression was when the JPEG was created, what size the prints are, what DPI they are printed at and what re sampling the printer uses. Having said all that - as a Grandparent I love all pics of the grandchildren, there is so much emphasis put on quality etc that quite often the emotional side of a print is overlooked.
 
this is getting all above me now :( so the dpi is worked out by the pixels of the image!!!? this is just inpractical lol its going to take me till next week probably to go through every pic i want to print to check how many pixels it is then do a bit of maths to work out the dpi lol :( i was hoping to batch change the dpi on all of them at once, is this really how everyone prints :( i thought editing was long winded, but its nothing compared to printing lol :(

you are right tho kev the emotional side does get over looked by me a lot of the time as i allways question my work be in printing of taking the pics to editing, i dont think ill ever be happy lol i bet my mum would be happy with small jpeg @ 5dpi but i like things to be the best they can if u know what i mean lol :)

all the best

Martin
 
a 6x4 inch print at 300dpi would need to be 1800x1200 pixels

some places don't ask for the dpi so you cna just upload the full size image. other places ask for the specific amount of pixels for a 300dpi image.

not all printers work at a native 300dpi


when I convert my RAW files I do it at 360dpi as I print on a epson printer. sometimes I reduce this to increase the print size.


you can set the dpi to any number you want - the number of pixels you have will influence the size of print you end up with.

your 7D has 5184 x 3456 pixels therefore at

300dpi your print would be 17.28 x 11.52
240dpi your print would be 21.60 x 14.40

the number of pixels are not changing wither you set 300 or 240 dpi
 
Wouldnt the best option be to use a lossless format instead on jpeg? TIFF for example? I mean I dont know if you can really see the difference between the two in most cases but it doesnt cost you anythign right? Heres an article about it: TIFF vs. JPEG vs. RAW I was reading the other day. Then again Ive used both with posters, flyers etc with my printer (print24) and I couldnt tell the difference afterwards to be honest... Tiff files are usually huge, thats the problem.
 
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