Novice seeks Costco printing help!

[oliverweagle]

Hi there!

I have just returned from vacation where I used a Canon 40D, shooting in RAW. I use an uncalibrated 21" Mac at home.

I have recently purchased Lightroom 3 which I have used for editing some of the images (so please read "novice" across the board!). I have a membership with Costco so I thought I would try their online service and get some pictures printed as I heard good things about them. (I have previously used Walgreens). When exporting the image from raw to jpeg in lightroom, it is set to "burn full size jpeg" save to hard drive, the format is set to jpeg, color space is srgb, quality set for 100, resize to fit is turned off, resolution set to 300 pixels per inch, and sharpen for glossy paper is checked.

I have not ordered any prints as I am still muddling through the uploading process. The maximum size of print that I can order (without the resolution warning triangle popping up on the Costco site) is 8 x 10. Does that sound right? Sorry to be laborious, I am just really confused at the moment!

I have also read about "applying Printer profiles" so one can get an idea of what the print may look like - is that applicable to costco also?

Thanks for any feedback and any hints that might point me in the right direction!

Ollie

[DigitalScape]

Matthew,

The Canon 40D sensor resolution (RAW) is 3888 pixels by 2592 pixels. Assuming that you are not cropping the image and setting the DPI at 300, the resulting print image is 12.96 inches by 8.64 inches (or an 8x12 print) I do not know if Costco offers 8x12 prints or if the next size up from 8x10 is 11x14. A 11x14 print would require either a lower DPI (~235DPI), or a re sampling of the image to "make up" additional pixels.

Costco has in the past provided the ICC profiles for their printers that you can download and use via soft-proofing. I am not too sure how to do the soft-proofing in Lightroom (I know how to do it in Photoshop).

[Tom]

Costco does offer 8x12s.

You can easily print a 20x30 and get good quality with the 40D. I've printed the 10D 6.3MP files at 20x30 without issue and regularly print files from my 1D3's 10MP sensor much larger.

Also, check out Mpix.com - Home.

[DigitalScape]

+1 to Tom's comment. I have printed 16x20 and even a 24x36 (canvas) images from the 40D. I have used (and liked the results) MPIX, and I am currently using BayPhoto.com for my prints (and CanvasOnDemand.com for the canvas prints).

[Jake]

Not sure why it's giving the triangle of doom, because according to their website it's within their requirements.
Will it let you order it bigger anyway?

table below shows the recommended resolutions for photo gifts and prints.
Print Size/Product Minimum image resolution required
4 x 6 690x460 pixels
5 x 7 805x575 pixels
8 x 8 920x920 pixels
8 x 10 1150x920 pixels
8 x 12 1380x920 pixels
11 x 14 Enlargements 1610x1265 pixels
12 x 12 1380x1380 pixels
12 x 18 Enlargements 2070x1380 pixels
16 x 20 Posters 2300x1840 pixels
20 x 30 Posters 3450x2300 pixels
11 x 14 Collage Posters 1260x990 pixels
12 x 18 Collage Posters 1620x1080 pixels
16 x 20 Collage Posters 1800x1440 pixels
20 x 30 Collage Posters 2700x1800 pixels
Wallet Prints 374x259 pixels
Photo Gifts 900x600 pixels
4¼x6 Postcards 900x600 pixels
Notebooks 480x480 pixels
Notebooks with full photo cover 1350x1000 pixels
Notepads 370x370 pixels
Stickers 370x370 pixels

[ggeen]

Check the upload site. I ran into this with Wolf Camera when I used to use them. There was a radio button that was selected by default for "standard upload". It was expecting a low resolution image and would down grade any image transferred. Another radio button, unchecked, was for original quality and would not degrade the uploaded image.

[Rson]

Costco Prints were very nice, They have color profile on the website for you to use.

I find it easiest to export the LR pictures you want to a folder on the desktop. In LR I believe you can set the color profile to costco's on export.

[oliverweagle]

Thanks for the replies! I am muddling through this and will let you know when I have reached the grail!

Cheers,

Ollie