GUIDELINES: UPLOADING IMAGE FILES FOR PRINTING

  • Do whatever creative work you wish to the image before uploading, such as levels, tone curves, saturation and cropping but please do not re-size, sharpen or apply noise reduction*. Sharpening and/or noise reduction is applied after enlarging and is the very last operation before printing, done to a finely controlled, exact amount which varies according to the image qualities and the degree of enlargement. Each image is individually assessed to determine the correct enlargement settings/method.  (*RAW Files: This does not apply to sharpening that might be applied as part of the Processing of RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw. You can find out more in this Video Tutorial.)
  • Upload the image file at the original resolution/size as captured by your camera, which doesn't mean that you shouldn't crop it, just don't enlarge or downsize it. In the case of digital art that's the original size as created on your computer. Beware of software that automatically downsizes files for emailing etc., which includes converting from 16 bit to 8 bit and you don't want to do that. If you are unsure compare the size in MB of the one you are sending to the original before you did anything to it.
  • Preferably upload the file in Tiff format, as a PSD or if you don't have a 16 bit file, an uncompressed Jpeg. We also support PDF, and RAW files.  If your file is any other format please convert it to one of these or contact us for advice.
  • Files should be in an sRGB or preferably Adobe RGB 1998 colorspace*. If the file was converted to grayscale, it must be resaved in RGB. We will do the conversion if a file is received in any other colour space and whilst it's unlikely we must mention that this has the potential lead to inconsistencies for which we cannot be responsible. (*Adobe RGB 1998 is the larger colorspace and therefore preferred over sRGB for printing. You should always select this option when shooting because you can always convert 'down' to sRGB for online use but you cannot go the other way, i.e. if you shoot in the more limited sRGB colorspace the lost information can't be put back in later.)
  • Aluminum, Acrylic & Stretched Canvas: We need a small bleed on each side (0.1" - 0.2") depending on the size of output. We recommend that you put any important edge detail, signature or text a safe distance from the edge of the print.
FILE UPLOAD & QUOTE/ORDER FORMS:

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