How to print your digital files

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR DIGITAL FILES

9/18/2021

You want wall worthy prints. You want a book you can leave on the coffee table to remind you of the good times, the fun times when the whole family was together and happy.

We can help.

HERE ARE OUR RECOMMENDATIONS

When printing gift size prints, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, 11x14 we recommend Mpix.com. This is because we have tested many consumer companies and have found Mpix to be the best. We use their professional company and our screens are calibrated to their machines.
For wall print sizing, anything above 11x14, we can only guarantee prints from our professional company. Professional companies have the equipment capable of enlarging the image and can match the color chosen. When purchasing from Amy & Caitie we place the order ourselves. This means we prep the image to match the size chosen and we will let you know if we do not think the image enlarge well.
Kiosk printing labs use just three colors, red, green and yellow, to create an image. We especially do not recommend printing professional images from a one hour kiosk.
Our canvas company is amazing, they use the tightest weave, uses a UV spray for protection, and contains a solid core so it will never sag. You can simply wipe with a damp cloth. They are more expensive and not as easy to store as prints, it is these reasons we recommend canvas for portraits meant to be shown for years before updating.

Let me tell you a little about how digital images work. Digital images are made up of pixels, little dots of color in a set location. When reducing the size the pixels simply shrink so there is no visible quality loss. This is why the majority of our images are horizontal. You can crop to vertical by simply cutting off the sides.
The camera picks up details based on light reflection. This means images early in the session will be sharper and be more inclined to enlarge clearer than images later in the session.
When enlarging the image the pixels expand or reproduced based on the nearby color. This is where we lose resolution.
When you crop an an image you need to think of it as enlarging it. The space cut off has to be filled in. Sometimes when printing different sizes there is no choice but to crop, as shown in the example below. It is ok to crop a little, however, you do not want to crop in too closely as in the image below. In that image I took 2"x3" of the original image and sized it up to 8"x12". This means they have to fill in 6"x9" of space.