印大相、油畫相製作 FAQ
Professional Photo Printing/ Fine Art Printing - FAQ
We are the experienced specialist who can turn your digital file into wonderful art piece, but despite how good we are, we can't always tackle certain file-related problems for you. This FAQ will help you avoid those common mis-conceptions or problems and get the most out of our quality productions.
Of course, we always carefully check the files & info, so you just need to have some basic understandings & be confident to our suggestions when problems are found.
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What should I pay attention to, when choosing a file? |
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Image resolution has to be sufficient. Attention: many mobile apps (e.g. whatsapp) will auto downsize photos, making them inadequate for quality printing. |
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Print & file aspect-ratio must be the same. |
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Whether the subject/ logo/ signature is placed too close to the image-border (which falls into the bleeding area). |
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Enlarge the image to “100% crop” to check for defects, such as blurring, excessive noise, sensor-dust or undesired facial expressions. |
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How to know if a file has sufficient resolution? |
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Unit of resolution is dpi(ppi) – dot(pixel) per inch. Resolution isn't always in direct proportion with file size, but a less than 1MB file is very likely inadequate for quality printing. |
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E.g., if the length of your file is 4500px, and if you want to print it at 30”, 4500/30=150dpi print-resolution. |
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In most cases, we'll rate 200dpi as very good, 150dpi as good, 120dpi as decent, and 72dpi as an acceptable bottom-line. |
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As a wall decoration, the proportion of the photo and the wall is of higher priority because it affects the overall presentation/aesthetics more, as long as resolution is still decent at more than 120dpi. |
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A high-res image can be blurry because of digital zoom/ enlargement, camera-shake, subject out-of-focus, or poor lens performance etc. |
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It is length:height proportion of the image. |
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E.g., if long-side / 3 x 2 = short-side, it is 3:2; if long-side / 4 x 3 = short-side, it is 4:3 |
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It is 3:2 for 135-format, APS-C cameras; 4:3 for 120-format, 4/3 and most smartphone cameras. |
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Print & file aspect-ratio must be the same, otherwise part of the image will disappear in the printout (red area shown below) |
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If there's aspect-ratio mis-match we will suggest the correct print size, but we can't crop photos for customers because it's a matter of preference, or aesthetically uncroppable |
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In most types of printing including some common photo printing, a few mm of the file-border can't be printed on the paper, this disappeared area is called "bleeding-area". Every truely professional designers & photographers know this limitation and avoid placing important subjects too close to the border. |
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Our giclee-printing can print everything without this bleeding, but when a print is framed, image-border will still be lost/not viewable because it is covered by the frame rabbet or passe-partout (or trimmed away for some frameless-style products), we call it "frame-bleeding". |
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Therefore, the viewable-size of a framed image is usually smaller than the original print-size. |
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Avoid placing important subject/ logo/ signature too close to the border (lower-left) otherwise part of them may disappear because of frame-bleeding (orange border of the lower right). |
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Is the color of the print accurate? |
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Giclee-printing is well-known for its wide color gamut and high color accuracy when the print-operator is an expert, and high-quality print-media is used, which is our case. |
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But oversimplified speaking, most monitors aren't accurate (brightness/ colors are free to tune), so that a color-accurate print-out may look different from a monitor. Since monitors emit light but print-outs don't, photos mostly look brighter when viewing with a monitor than on a color-accurate printout. |
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Monitor accuracy can be achieved by using a high-quality monitor AND calibrating with a spectrophotometer in a professional way. |
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If we judge that the brightness of your image isn’t good enough, we will provide suggestions/ solutions. |
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Color-management is very complicated knowledge, overlooking just one rule/ law or without actual working experiences can cause serious misconception. Please trust that we are PROFESSIONAL when we raise a problem and propose a solution. |
This is an oversimplified version of our FAQ, please find the more detailed versions HERE. |
