Printing Issues-

[PS*]

A friend who is in a really hard way this holiday with having a brand new baby and 3 others who couldn't afford holiday/birthday photos asked me if I could help her out. I did, we had a great time and now she says that the photos that I sent her on a disc are not printing well. I asked her not to go to an instant kiosk, but she is saying her 4x6 prints from my camera (d300) get a small triangle that they will not print the best quality. I have checked the resolution, they all exceed the resolution needed for this print size.
Why would they throw a low quality flag? Most were in JPEG fine, some were in RAW just because I wanted to experiment shooting etc with raw.
I put some on my smugmug and ordered from there to see what the quality is. We are in different states so I can't use the exact place she did but I've not had any issues like this when I use a quick lab for the grandparents.


quick note. looks like a couple are TIFF files, must have made a mistake when switching back and forth. 6 kids in total was a real mind boggler that afternoon.

anyone have any ideas why she would get a flag for low quality?

[teaking]

Strange JPEG and TIFF are usualy universaly excepted so I cant see it being an issue with the file type like you said your self.

I can only assume its the resolution do you know the Pixel width and height you sent? and also out of curiosity the DPI value of the image?

She isnt emailing the pictures to them is she?? alot of email programs resize pictures before sending.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by teaking

Strange JPEG and TIFF are usualy universaly excepted so I cant see it being an issue with the file type like you said your self.

Many retail kiosks use software that doesnt find TIFF files. It's actually more common than you might think. In town here there are only 2 places that regularly take tiffs, though most have a 50/50 hit rate.

[PS*]

Osmosis,
I didn't know that. Thanks, I will keep that in mind. I never use TIFF so as long as I am more careful when changing modes, this should alleviate my issue. But it could be the cause of a few of her problems.

I checked the resolutions of all the photos and most are 2,848 x 4,288 give or take a few here and there.
How do I find the DPI of each shot?

Thank you! You guys are a huge help.

[teaking]

Goes to show you learn something every day, never ran into the issue with TIFF I have faced it with PNG by accident lol, thats a great tip though and will save me embarassment not being able to print TIFF's

Looks like your resolution is spot on, your DPI would be on your file information usualy right click and properties on wndows O/S and then on the details tab but it will probably be 72 or 96 most camera's use this as default.And it doesnt really matter as when your selecting the size 4x6 its irrelivant.

I can only assume it is something your friend is doing when sending the file or the printers. I would suggest asking her what she is doing in a step by step thing to try and troubleshoot where it could be going wrong.

[PS*]

I contacted the superheros over at smugmug to see if they could find anything wrong with the images i had uploaded in her gallery. They said everything was as it should be and if the files in her gallery were the exact files on her disc then there should be no problem, that the problem must be something she had done to the files or an issue with whomever was printing for her.
I am relieved. Smugmug does accept TIF files so perhaps it was just those random photos that messed up the whole lot at the printing kiosk.

I don't print digital very often, only upon request, if I print its usually 120 flim that has to be sent out to the middle of nowhere--so all these problems are new to me! Thanks to both of you for your help.
I am wondering if I shouldn't give my friends discs anymore, just email. Someone always has an issue. I put my own on a thumb drive for my printing.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by PS*

How do I find the DPI of each shot?

Doesnt matter. Youve got the resolution and thats what counts. Where are you trying to get these printed?

[PS*]

I wasn't, she was; it was a target lab.
The smugmug photos arrived today and they looked fantastic. So I am just going to void myself of doing anything wrong, must have been something on her end that was effecting the photographs on the disc.

[OsmosisStudios]

Either the disk was bad or Target is a bunch of numpties.

My money's on both.