I export mine to a USB stick and then take them along to the developer for printing.
If you want to upload them then you will no doubt need to export the photo first and use their software or web page to upload it to them. I do not know of any printers, in the uk, that have written an aperture plugin that will export directly to their servers for them to print.
I should also point out that I have spoken to the developers at my local printers and that they recommended my export settings for aperture.
I was originally exporting tiff at 300dpi and taking them along, however their machine’s automatically change them to jpeg and do a really poor job of compressing them.
So after speaking to them, for a length of time, I have found exporting as jpeg at 300dpi in SRGB mode is a much better solution/quality for me. Their printer software see’s it as a jpeg and leaves the file alone, so it doesn’t get compressed by their software. Their software/printer can not handle Adobe RGB.
I’m no expert in color space, but I’ve been told before to avoid sRGB; that the “s” stands for, well, you can guess.
Just my 2¢. Actually, someone else’s 2¢. I can’t even claim to own those pennies. And they may be worthless pennies. But worth discussing with your printer.
Yep, I always shoot in Adobe RGB however the place where I take my photos can not handle Adobe RGB, so I have to change them to SRGB on export :(
If I do not change before I take them I find the colour re-production just seems a bit off, I don’t know why their software doesn’t handle Adobe RGB.
I need to find a better developer however the guy where I go to is so friendly.
The one thing that I always make sure of is on the export presets I turn on black point compensation. I am not too sure what it does, however I was watching Scott Bourne on Creative live and one of the aperture developers told him to make sure it was enabled on the export preset.
Hmm, black point compensation on? Interesting, I do need to look into that. I’ve never used it or needed it but it’s something I’ll have to dig more into. I thought it darkened the file (lowering the black point), which for printing you generally don’t want as it will always be darker than what you see on screen, but maybe I’ve got it backwards.
I did an export of two 12x8 picture’s at 300 dpi with color profile Adobe RGB and black point compensation. The result was what I expected.
But….if I understand correct the prints you got were horrible while at the monitor at the print shop they looked fine. That sounds to me like their printing process is doing something to the settings. I know quite a lot of shops do automatic adjustments before printing. Maybe that the case here?
Any more updates to the ideal print export settings? I just had some photos printed at my local shop in Boulder that prints for a lot of pros in the area and the same shots on shutterfly….both look terrible! Almost like iphone pics, and they were shot in RAW on a 7D with canon’s 17-55 2.8 Found out I’ve been exporting my ‘original jpeg’ shots at 72dpi and a lot of people recommend 300dpi? I’m just printing 4x6’s but really want to print a couple ‘keepers’ really big if I can figure out how to not have small prints look like total shit. Guy at the print shop recommended srgb….getting really frustrated because they look amazing on my 27in iMac and even on Facebook but when printed it looks awful. What about the ‘image quality’ slider….should I boost that to 12? I’ve got the Work like a Pro training and see Joseph decreasing the image quality to 8 for a client….how exactly does this slider work?
Any suggestions would be amazing! THanks in advance
Welp, I just went back to the print place and the lady who’s the manager wasn’t really any help but she gladly did a test print of a photo of my daughters I’m gonna send out to the relatives….the shadows of this particular shot got really really dark, to the point that my daughters sand blonde hair looks close to black in the shadowy areas. We pulled it up on her monitor and it looked exactly the same as my iMac, but something went wrong in how its printing so she recommended I go to the Apple store a couple blocks away. I spoke with the kid who does the Aperture training and he only had a basic understanding of the program, I had to show him how to edit the export settings and he didn’t know the diff between sRGB and the other export options like dpi. His solution was to just crank the shadow slider and play a guessing game trying to get it to print correctly. I’m getting really frustrated, I’ve never calibrated my monitor but the pic looks identical on my iMac and the print stores Windoze machine…..I don’t get why it could print so drastically different??
I export mine to a USB stick and then take them along to the developer for printing.
If you want to upload them then you will no doubt need to export the photo first and use their software or web page to upload it to them. I do not know of any printers, in the uk, that have written an aperture plugin that will export directly to their servers for them to print.
Thanks.
I should also point out that I have spoken to the developers at my local printers and that they recommended my export settings for aperture.
I was originally exporting tiff at 300dpi and taking them along, however their machine’s automatically change them to jpeg and do a really poor job of compressing them.
So after speaking to them, for a length of time, I have found exporting as jpeg at 300dpi in SRGB mode is a much better solution/quality for me. Their printer software see’s it as a jpeg and leaves the file alone, so it doesn’t get compressed by their software. Their software/printer can not handle Adobe RGB.
Chris, this is very helpful. Solves several problems I have had, including your comment about Adobe RGB.
Folks,
I’m no expert in color space, but I’ve been told before to avoid sRGB; that the “s” stands for, well, you can guess.
Just my 2¢. Actually, someone else’s 2¢. I can’t even claim to own those pennies. And they may be worthless pennies. But worth discussing with your printer.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
Yep, I always shoot in Adobe RGB however the place where I take my photos can not handle Adobe RGB, so I have to change them to SRGB on export :(
If I do not change before I take them I find the colour re-production just seems a bit off, I don’t know why their software doesn’t handle Adobe RGB.
I need to find a better developer however the guy where I go to is so friendly.
The one thing that I always make sure of is on the export presets I turn on black point compensation. I am not too sure what it does, however I was watching Scott Bourne on Creative live and one of the aperture developers told him to make sure it was enabled on the export preset.
Chris,
Hmm, black point compensation on? Interesting, I do need to look into that. I’ve never used it or needed it but it’s something I’ll have to dig more into. I thought it darkened the file (lowering the black point), which for printing you generally don’t want as it will always be darker than what you see on screen, but maybe I’ve got it backwards.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
— Have you signed up for the mailing list?
I did an export of two 12x8 picture’s at 300 dpi with color profile Adobe RGB and black point compensation. The result was what I expected.
But….if I understand correct the prints you got were horrible while at the monitor at the print shop they looked fine. That sounds to me like their printing process is doing something to the settings.
I know quite a lot of shops do automatic adjustments before printing. Maybe that the case here?
Just my 2 cts
Greetz, Martin
Any more updates to the ideal print export settings? I just had some photos printed at my local shop in Boulder that prints for a lot of pros in the area and the same shots on shutterfly….both look terrible! Almost like iphone pics, and they were shot in RAW on a 7D with canon’s 17-55 2.8
Found out I’ve been exporting my ‘original jpeg’ shots at 72dpi and a lot of people recommend 300dpi? I’m just printing 4x6’s but really want to print a couple ‘keepers’ really big if I can figure out how to not have small prints look like total shit. Guy at the print shop recommended srgb….getting really frustrated because they look amazing on my 27in iMac and even on Facebook but when printed it looks awful.
What about the ‘image quality’ slider….should I boost that to 12?
I’ve got the Work like a Pro training and see Joseph decreasing the image quality to 8 for a client….how exactly does this slider work?
Any suggestions would be amazing! THanks in advance
Welp, I just went back to the print place and the lady who’s the manager wasn’t really any help but she gladly did a test print of a photo of my daughters I’m gonna send out to the relatives….the shadows of this particular shot got really really dark, to the point that my daughters sand blonde hair looks close to black in the shadowy areas. We pulled it up on her monitor and it looked exactly the same as my iMac, but something went wrong in how its printing so she recommended I go to the Apple store a couple blocks away.
I spoke with the kid who does the Aperture training and he only had a basic understanding of the program, I had to show him how to edit the export settings and he didn’t know the diff between sRGB and the other export options like dpi. His solution was to just crank the shadow slider and play a guessing game trying to get it to print correctly.
I’m getting really frustrated, I’ve never calibrated my monitor but the pic looks identical on my iMac and the print stores Windoze machine…..I don’t get why it could print so drastically different??