MPIX.xom questions

[VibrantMindDance]

Hey everyone. A few of you have recommended MPIX.com to me for easy printing so i've signed up and decided to finally try it. Basically, being the genius that I am, i've been processing hundreds of photos over the past year on my crappy laptop... never having printed ANY of them to see how badly my monitor could be. I bought a real cheap canon printer once and tried that and the prints were really bad, and I did try one of those sony kiosks at a local camera store, which also came out badly.

Anyway. I'm going to give it a shot and just have mpix print up an 8x10 to see how it looks. I'm not sure if I should upload and send the JPEG or sharpen the TIFF file and send them that. I'd love to hear any feedback on MPIX or my possible waste of a year processing photos.

Thanks all!

NOTE: I thought you might need some info on my workflow. I usually apply all my corrections to the raw file (except sharpening) and save it as a tiff, than i drop the tiff to about 90 resolution, sharpen it and save it as a jpeg for web use at about 9 high quality. So i've got the original raw, an unsharp full size tiff and a small sharpened jpeg to work with.

[VibrantMindDance]

I've been trying to figure it out myself via MPIX.com FAQ and such. Now i'm even more confused. DPI and PPI. When i'm dropping my TIFFs to JPEGS i'm bringing them down to 90 Pixles/inch... so i'm assuming thats not nearly enough for a good quality 8x10. When processing should I just make two JPEGS from the TIFF one at 90ppi for web posting and one thats larger (i'm not sure what an adequate ppi would be, so any help would be appreciated) for printing?

I hope someone sees this soon. I'm about to tear my hair out.

[gldiana]

Hi,

No need to send TIFF's, MPIX converts them to JPG before print (last I know). Make sure you send the highest quality possible and don't go crazy about DPI/PPI. Sent the highest resolution at highest quality saving and they will take care of the rest after you specify which size you want the print to be.

[VibrantMindDance]

Ok i'll send the highest quality/res. But CS3 doesnt let me save as a jpeg unless i downsize it?

Now, I am still concerned with all the other stuff though. I shoot in sRGB, I work in sRGB everything is sRGB.... which I was told is good if I intend to ship out for prints... but not so good when the time comes i learn to do my own printing, or for publications, etc. Any thoughts on that? Also, everything I have now was taken in sRGB, so if I process it in Adobe RGB will it cause color problems when time comes to print or post? I just dont want to have hundreds of good photos all processed only to realize that they're not good for anything but webposting and lab printing. I want them to be ready for any kind of use.

Is there any reason I should NOT shoot in Adobe if i'm not doing my own printing?

Maybe someone has a good book in mind thats not full of super techy lingo?

I know i'm asking for someone to teach me accurate color management/printing all at once... which is impossible... some suggestions would be helpful though!

[gldiana]

CS3 doesnt let me save as a jpeg unless i downsize it?

I can assure you that that is not the case. If it doesn't let you save JPG there must be some other reason (layers maybe?).

As for the color profile, I use AdobeRGB because has a wider gamut but you don't have to stress unnecessarily for having used sRGB, lots of people do, you don't need to convert anything before sending to a lab. And even if you print at home with a printer that costs less than a few thousand dollars I really doubt you'd be able to see the difference between the two gamuts.

[VibrantMindDance]

Hm. What about publications, editorials, magazines? Dont they usually requires Adobe RGB?

As for the saving jpegs. ANytime I try to save it through "Save for Web And Devices" it tells me its too large for what the device was intended and that It may result in loss of quality, low memory errors, etc. There are no layers. If I try to just hit "save as", when i hit the dropdown box for formats, jpeg isnt even an option.

[tortuga]

1st -

Forget about DPI and PPI settings in PS. They will confuse you until you understand the concept of resolution.

If your image is 1000 pixels wide and you print it - or have it printed - 4 inches wide, the resolution is 250dpi (1000/4).

If you take the same image and print and print it 5 inches wide, the resolution is 200dpi (1000/5).

That's it.

2nd -

Regarding color space, I wrote this post on an underwater Photo site I am a moderator on and I think it may help you so I will repost it here:

======================================

I have been asked to provide a sticky thread document explaining color space because there have been some questions about colors looking different online than in the photo editor. I would never identify the person that asked me to do this but I will say that SHE has been getting questions about this, is an administrator of this forum, has super powers, and will always be obeyed eventually so it’s best to get this over with.

I next want to disclaim anything I say by stating point blank that I know little about the subject and will tell it like I think it is but will happily accept corrections to any errors I make.

The purpose here is to try to explain only the color spaces we will be concerned with while learning digital photography and to do it as simply as possible.

1) All of the color we can see (aptly call the visible color spectrum) are not all the colors we get when we use different digital devices.

2) Color spaces are ranges, or gamut of color that fall within the visual color spectrum

3) No devices, such as monitors, printers, and cameras can reproduce what we see – yet, so we have to work within the spaces, or boundaries that these devices can handle if we expect to output to them with acceptable results.

4) Most printing devices use 4 basic colors of ink to create all of the colors we see on the printed page. They are Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK, or CMYK.

5) Monitors mostly use Red, Green and Blue (RGB) ray guns to create all of the colors we see on our screen.

6) The 2 color spaces we will concern ourselves with here are sRGB and Adobe RGB. Of these two, AdobeRGB has a wider gamut and so contains more information. It is also the closest to the CMYK range so is best for images that are destined to be printed. sRGB on the other hand, is a narrower range of colors. This space is used more by Internet software and is usually more universal.


For our purposes, it is generally best to have our files set to AdobeRGB. This is because we may want to use our images online or as prints so we may end up using both spaces. If you start with the wider space (AdobeRGB), you can always convert it to the narrower space (sRGB) later with little or no noticeable change to your colors. The reverse is not true.

Our first encounter with color space in our workflow, may be in the camera. Depending on the camera, we may be able to select that our jpg files be saved as sRGB or Adobe RGB. Or we may have one or the other with no choice. If your camera only saves files in sRGB, you are done thinking about it. Keep them in that colorspace throughout the workflow. It will do you no good to ever change it to AdobeRGB since those colors were never captured in the first place.

If you have a choice, set it to AdobeRGB even if you are shooting raw. This won’t affect the raw file but it will affect the review thumb making it closer to what you will see after you convert the raw file, although I doubt it really matters. The only time you would want to set your camera to sRGB if you have a choice, would be if you are saving each image in RAW and jpg (some cameras offer this choice), and you expect to only use the jpgs online only. This way you won’t have to change the space on your jpgs but you can still use AdobeRGB when you convert the RAW file.

For raw files, be sure to set your converter to output to AdobeRGB so you will get the wider gamut for editing and printing.

Remember to convert your AdobeRGB images to sRGB before saving them for web use. This will keep them from looking different online than you saw them in your editor although sometimes you may still notice a slight difference. In Photoshop CS2, this is done by going to edit/convert to profile.

Oh, one more thing: don’t make the common mistake of converting an image to CMYK for your desktop printer. Even though it will use CMYK to make the print, it does it’s own conversion and expects an RGB file. Sending it a CMYK file will only confuse it.

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Hope this helps...

[gldiana]

Hm. What about publications, editorials, magazines? Dont they usually requires Adobe RGB?

As for the saving jpegs. ANytime I try to save it through "Save for Web And Devices" it tells me its too large for what the device was intended and that It may result in loss of quality, low memory errors, etc. There are no layers. If I try to just hit "save as", when i hit the dropdown box for formats, jpeg isnt even an option.

Keep in mind that magazine paper usually offers the lowest print quality (with due exceptions), nothing compared to the gamut of a rag or museum paper so they're not usually interested in anything else other than being able to print the photo.

Why are you trying to save for web and devices? That setting is so that you don't waste space on iPods, Zune, Zen, etc and for emailing small photos without using too much bandwidth (i.e. for people who have dial-up).

[VibrantMindDance]

The only reason I was using the "Save for Web and Devices" is because I needed to save in jpeg format, and as I stated, for some reason when i use "save as" and go to the dropdown box to change the file format, JPEG isnt even an option. I've discovered no other means of saving the image as a jpeg.

[tortuga]

Most likely it's because you are in 16 bit, or as Luca said, you have layers, or both. JPG does not recognize either of those things. Flatten the image if there are layers and change to 8 bit, and the JPG option will be available in "save as"

[hw771230]

CS3 allows saving as a jpg even if you have layers, although it does flatten the image in saving. I think the only time jpg isn't an option for saving is when you are in 16 bit as Mike said.

Caleb