How to Prepare your Photos for Print

Alright, so you've taken a photo you love. You go to print it out and you are devastated because it looks cra%.

Well, we all experience this and I hope this video helps you.

I'll share my workflow for preparing my images to print. My advice, tips, and techniques for ensuring the print does the photo justice!

Enjoy!

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00:01:11 - Reviewing your Image
00:02:48 - Looking for mistakes, blemishes, and distractions
00:04:28 - Shadows and blacks - screen vs. print
00:07:30 - Resizing your image
00:08:50 - Saving your image
00:09:49 - Reviewing the print
00:10:23 - What else to consider - lab, monitor, and paper
00:11:18 - What about printing on canvas

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Say hello!

[TheycallmeWade]

I love turning an image into a print, it’s the final step and you learn so much from it as it’s on display 24/7 and not stuck in a folder

[jennybaxter]

I've spent half the day looking for tips on how to set files ready for print and couldn't find the information I needed. I stumbled across your video and have learnt so much! Wish I'd found it early. Love your photos and love your videos! Thank you so much for sharing.

[jordanbloomfield]

That’s great advice about brightening your photo before printing, I’m leaning that the hard way 😅 but even a dark printed image may sill look good in a brightly lit setting, so not all is lost. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of my latest prints (now brightened before submitting)

[favourorji]

Brilliant tutorial! 🎉 And that’s a perfect image.

[gerardconsidine]

I'm getting to the point where I want to start printing my images and this was really informative. Cheers mate!

[teeeenyfifi]

It’s crazy how different prints look! Thanks for this! I was actually reading a photo mag the other day and specifically the blues looked insane! Maybe they should watch this 😁😁

[tobis]

Thanks William for this video. I watched it right away on your advice regarding the brightness settings for images.

[Tpformanphotography]

Thanks so much for this useful information William. I know that this video is from one year ago, but I am just now learning how to improve my printing workflow. This will come in very handy for me going forward. Thanks again.

[oribe]

Excellent Vid and advice. just as i like it. clear, concise and no annoying unnecessary info. Brill. Thanks very much.

[chriswright]

Very helpful video - about to take the plunge into printing some of my images - many thanks!

[FriedaFreimann]

Thank you!!!! Easy to understand, super!

[magsRmcg]

just came across this today.. very informative in easy to understand lingo.. i was aware of a lot of terms before, for eg tiff, psd, files but never knew which file to use, uou have explained it perfectly. thank you

[michaelmcphee]

Nice one mate. This has clued me up to the extent I can start having a few photos printed professionally on canvas. Thanks mate.

[williamb.roberson]

@WilliamPatinoPhotography Thank you for this video. Awesome! It's everything I've been looking for.

[Ben_CoombeNz]

This a very relatable vid to what I struggle with. Getting it right from computer screen to print is frustrating, most of the time it’s darker then you won’t, cheers for the pointers man

[John-Blaze]

Thank you so much dude! Answered all my questions.

[zeus.edwards]

also try threshold adjustment layer, slide slider all the way to one side then gradually move it the next direction till the black start to show, then take the "color sampler tool and click on a black spot, then slide the slider all the way to next side then gradually move it till the whites start to show up and use the color sampler tool again and click and put a point on the white, delete threshold adjustment layer, then open curves and it the properties panel, there are 3 eye droppers, click on the one that says sample black point, now click on the picture where you set the black point from the sample tool, then go to the sample white point eye dropper and click on the picture where you set the white point, after open levels and on the properties window where you can adjust the shadows midtones and highlights sliders, in the shadow box where it has zero, input the number 7 and on the highlights side input 247, from there you can adjust the midtones accordingly slightly then print.

[carolyneyles]

Thank you so much for this great video. You've completely demystified the daunting process of preparing and sizing images for print. Your steps are really clear. I especially like that you give us the thought process behind your decisions. That's great teaching. Having avoided it for ages, I'm now ready to give it a go!

[jasondarbyshire_photography]

Thankyou so much
Sent off my first print thankyou ☺️

[melindapryor]

Awesome Will, thanks for sharing this. I have just sent some test prints to the lab and am trying different fine art papers but I wasn't aware of having to pull up the blacks so much. I got stuck on the resizing also, oh well, all test and error. Thanks again!