Printing digital photos

Hello everyone on this great website!

I am new to this site and to aviation photography in general. I spot at Schiphol on a regular basis around 10 times a year. But I intend to up this number in the near future. I spot for registration and photography.

I like the digital photo albums but I miss the feel of real photos. So I would like to print my best digital photos and make real photos out of them. I will not print these photos myself so I will search for a online service which provides the best quality for print.

Enough about me.

My question is:

Which resolution should my digital photos be to be printed in the best quality? I would like to print in 10x15cm. I have read somewhere that 300 dpi (ppi) is a must and that the resolution should be 1800x1200. Can anyone confirm this or give me some advice?

Thanks in advance.

With kind regards,

Twan van Baaren

300 dpi is generally regarded as the industry standard for commercial printing, so I would go with that. Use the maximum image size that you can manage. It is easier to scale down an image to fit a paper than it is to scale a small image up to fit a larger paper.

I too miss having real prints and hope to do something about that soon. ;)

Thanks for your response Wallace.

Thanks for confirming the 300dpi. And maximum resolution you mean the maximum resolution my camera can handle?

Do any of you have some experience with printing digital photos? If so do you know any good services that also deliver in The Netherlands?

Your help is appreciated!

Yes, I think is the maximum resolution you have for your photo, for ex. with Canon EOS 50D 4752 x 3168 pixels.

Take into account the prints are in general less sharpened and darker than PC screen view

Javier

The 300 dpi, is the PRINTER resolution, you can go higher if you wish it is just that 300 dpi seems to be the industry standard.

I use the maximum image size that I can,after cropping from the camera.

Images that are destined to be printed need a higher degree of sharpening than those destined for viewing on the screen.This can only be determined by trial and error.

I am fighting a running battle and the printer seems to be winning at the moment. My Epson R2400 printe uses nine ink cartridges at around £12 a cartridge, so I went over to a refillable ink system, which was a mistake as I should have went over to a continuous ink flow system. The major draw back with that is the large outlay for the conversion system. Hopefully I should have this rectified soon and back in the printing game.

One service I swear by is Loxley Colour

http://www.loxleycolour.com

They do ship to Europe but you have to contact them first for shipping prices

http://www.loxleycolour.com/shippinginformation.aspx

Thank you for all your replies guys! Really appreciate it.

I will use all your tips and begin my trail & error run.

Will report back when I've got some satisfying results.

This site will probably get my custom when I get the printer up and running. It costs something like £300 to buy a printer profiler, where as their service costs £15 a time, which makes sense if one is not going to make that many changes with paper and ink.

http://www.colourprofiles.com/index.htm

Remember to take into account the media that you are printing your image on.

Printing to canvas will require different post-processing than printing to paper etc.

I send all my large work out to a local Shop and anything smaller or cheaper like posters I get done at http://www.posterjack.ca with excellent results.

Anything that I print is saved at full native resolution and 240-300ppi. With larger sizes you can use a smaller ppi because the viewing distance is further for something like a 20x30" canvas versus an 8x10" photo.