I have a MacBook Pro and use Mac OSX vs 10.6.8 I have Aperture 3. I am an amateur photographer and am organizing an exhibition for a non-profit organization. I am printing photographs for the first time and it is terrible. I have learned a lot from this website; I now know about exporting, presets, watermarks…but I am still having difficulties with the quality of my prints. Everyone is telling me I need Photoshop…but I cannot afford it at the moment. I love Aperture 3 and I am sure that there is way for my 12x18 and 12x36 Panoramic photos to not come out blurry….I do not understand what I am doing wrong. I have set a preset with the different print sizes, all at 300dpi and with the correct Aspect Ratio. I am at my wits end with this. At the printing shop Costco they tell 'your photos are the wrong size', 'your color profile is different'…. and ask about 'masks' but I cannot find anything similar in Aperture. My panoramic photos look awesome on screen and blurry in print…. some of my photos are cropped and I do not think I quite understand the color profiles. I would truly appreciate if you could guide me in the right direction to accomplish this. Thanks! Be well!
Knowing what type of camera you’re using, whether you’re original images are shot in RAW or JPEG, and what size images you’re providing to be printed will help to provide guidance.
If you’re having the images printed by Costco (or anywhere else), most use images that are saved in an sRGB color space. Additionally, when you save the image from Aperture to JPEG, you don’t (read DO NOT) want to reduce the resolution - keep it at 300dpi (if you’re reducing the resolution to anything lower than this, that will cause the images to be blurry).
Charles is spot on. We need to know the native (full-size) pixel size of your camera’s image files, and whether you are capturing in raw or JPG format in the camera. You don’t need Photoshop. You just need the correct steps to scale your images to the size and pixel density (resolution - dpi) of the prints you want to make.
You should note that cameras with very small output image size won’t produce nice large prints. So if you camera’s native image resolution is 3-4 megapixels, for example, do not expect very sharp, detailed prints at 12x18 or 12x36. The output file for a 12x18 print at 300 pixels per inch will be 3600 x 5400 pixels. A 12x36 print will require 3600 x 10,800 pixels.
If your camera is less than 6-7MP native full size resolution, your 12x18 will look soft, even with judicious amounts of sharpening applied. You simply don’t have enough detail to scale well up to 12x18. Given that 12x36 is twice the width of 12x18, you will need at least 12MP to have even a remote chance of making a nice 12x36 pano print.
Another factor in how crisp your prints look is “output sharpening”, meaning sharpening applied to the image at the scaled size of the print. Aperture does not have sharpening at output as a feature in the Export version workflow. I find the best way to do this is to use BorderFX, or one of the onOne or NIK software plugins to do my scaled output. All of those options provide much better sharpening after scaling to the print size you want. They won’t make up for lack of detail if your original, native image files are too small. However, they will help make the edges in the image more crisp if there is enough detail for a good quality print at the scaled sizes you stated (12x18 and 12x36 pano).
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Wrt print dimensions, after Joseph did a live training session on printing, I made an AppleScript to do the calculations in Aperture:
http://sdaven.blogspot.com/2013/02/applescript-print-dimensions-calculator.html
Might help you here.
Scott
http://scottdavenportphoto.com/
Charles, Walter and Scott….Thank you so much for your replies. I had a personal setback and I had not been able to check back here.
The camera I have is a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V 16.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Still Camera with 16x Optical Zoom G Lens, 3D Sweep Panorama and Full HD 1080/60p Video. (My first attempt to jump from a point-and-shoot to a bit more complex camera)
My images are shot in Jpeg. All of the images I have trouble with are 15MP and were exported at 300dpi. When I exported a photo with 300dpi, aspect ratio 2:3 to be printed size 12x18, the print came back blurry. I was told that I did not compress the pixels with a proper mask. I think I am confused with the cropping and the compressing it with a mask. Can you help me? Thanks a bunch!
Marcia .. Are you resizing as you export? You need to resize to the dimensions needed to fill the print. As I explained above, a 12x18 print at 300dpi needs to be 3600x5400 pixels. If your JPG image has smaller dimensions than that it will look soft.
Photographer | https://www.walterrowe.com | https://instagram.com/walter.rowe.photo
Try to print it as is and the photo should be on its default size, the larger the pixels the good quality of prints it will have regardless of any print media you try. That is what I can share, also try to see FAQ’s and visit pages by pages so you can get the right idea.