Printing from LR

christilou

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
I've never printed any photos before but would like to. My question is this: what settings should I use when exporting from LR? I have mine all set up to post pics here, i.e quality, size etc. Do I need to change things like resolution now? I really have no idea I'm afraid!
 
Don't do anything until you hear back from some experienced folks. Don helped me when I did some test prints (way larger than I'd want for myself) with my LX5 but I used Mpix to process them...they came out beautifully.

Will you be printing them yourself, Christina?
 
I'm no expert but I do print direct from LR3 and it isn't rocket science. I suggest doing some test prints first (I use A4 quality inkjet paper for this) and within the LR print module you can adjust size, orientation, borders etc. i prefer matte paper to glossy but that's just me.

Oh, I didn't mention that you don't export from LR, you just make your post processing adjustments and away you go. I use an HP C6380 All-in-one
 
Printing is...mhhhh....delicate.
My advise would be to reed and see the online tutorials from Adobe. There are some traps possible, f.e. when the color handling in LR and printer are both active and produce nasty colors......
Normally you should start to get the colours and brightness of your screen as perfect as possible or close and get some knowledge about print resolution, different papers etc.

Rule of thumb for beginners: use the original ink from the printermaker and his papers and look from time to time whether there are new printer drivers for your model.
Another rule: the more ink colours you have the better the prints - especially for b&w prints with black, grey and light grey ink in order to avoid bronzing.....

I hate printing as I did with the darkroom........

BTW: monitors need the resolution of 72 (dpi) even they are not real dots, prints differ from 300 dpi (dot per inch) for close up viewing down to 150 dpi when a big poster will be looked on from 2 - 5 meter.
 
Printing is...mhhhh....delicate.
. There are some traps possible, f.e. when the color handling in LR and printer are both active and produce nasty colors......
Normally you should start to get the colours and brightness of your screen as perfect as possible or close and get some knowledge about print resolution, different papers etc.

If you haven't done so already, get a colour calibrator for your monitor (SpyderPro by Datacolor is popular, I have one); plus a "soft proofing" plugin for LR (the only one I've found around is from lightroom-plugins.com); and ".icc" profiles for your printer & paper. All this should allow you to preview in LR what you are likely to see on the paper, without using buckets of ink.
 
If you haven't done so already, get a colour calibrator for your monitor (SpyderPro by Datacolor is popular, I have one); plus a "soft proofing" plugin for LR (the only one I've found around is from lightroom-plugins.com); and ".icc" profiles for your printer & paper. All this should allow you to preview in LR what you are likely to see on the paper, without using buckets of ink.


Yes, I have a Spyder (not the Pro) and calibrate from time to time my MachBookPro 17" screen. The information about the soft-proof plugin is very interesting for me, thanks!

The ink is really very expensive for my Epson 2400. A bit more than € 1.000 per liter........
 
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