# Exporting in Lightroom 3



## Leopard Lupus (Dec 23, 2011)

I'm looking for some tips here.
Coming from a history of black and white darkroom printing, I am not very familiar with the features of LR exporting. Editing is fine, but for some reason my final pieces of work are not as sharp as they should be. I am mainly shooting with a 5D mk ll and 135mm f/2 L lens, in RAW.
What should I be setting my File Settings and Image Size to? I am making physical prints around the size of 8x10.
Thanks!


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## Orangutan (Dec 23, 2011)

Why are you exporting? (I mean this as real question) If you're doing your own printing, you can print directly from Lightroom. If you're printing from some other program, which one? Photoshop? If so, don't export it at all: LR has an option to transfer the image directly to PS.

General answer to the question: don't reduce the size or data content of your image until the final step (i.e. the actual printing) If you're not printing from LR, then you should export it full size, in a lossless format. The optimum export format will depend on the program that's going to print.


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## Leopard Lupus (Dec 23, 2011)

I have been exporting from LR once my edits are done, then sending them to Mpix.com for physical printing. Should I still be exporting, or going through LR's "print" function? (Sorry, should have clarified where my prints are being done)
Thanks for the reply, Orangutan!


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## Orangutan (Dec 23, 2011)

Leopard Lupus said:


> sending them to Mpix.com for physical printing



That makes it easy: check their web site or email them and ask what export process gives them the best results. Make sure to tell them what you expect from the prints: are they vacation snaps? Paying customer prints? Art prints? If they say JPEG for everything you might want to consider a different print company. (JPEG is fine for small prints, but if it's an "art" print you'll get better sharpness and tone gradation from a lossless format)

You might want to wait for more responses here: I actually don't do a lot of printing, so other folks here might be able to speak from greater experience.


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## Leopard Lupus (Dec 23, 2011)

I sent them an email, thank you again!


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## aldvan (Dec 23, 2011)

Just one export passage to JPG leaves the IQ almost perfect, if you set Quality=100 and Resolution=300.
I compared many time at very high magnification an LR3 exported PP JPG with the correspondent RAW and I found non significant loss of quality. You have to consider that many editing tools are not available in LR3. In case I need them, I export the image in TIFF, than I edit it and after that I save it in JPG (maximum quality, minimum compressione).
By the way, since mass memory amount is not more an issue (I have a 4Tb NAS), always I save the JPG (for portability), the original RAW and the LR3 catalog that contains all the editing parameters.


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## justsomedude (Dec 23, 2011)

Leopard Lupus said:


> Editing is fine, but for some reason my final pieces of work are not as sharp as they should be.



Leopard,

It looks like you've opened the can-of-worms that is digital printing. First, don't be worried, with a few steps and due diligance, you'll be getting the quality results you want.

A few things to know when exporting from Lightroom for physical prints...


*MOST IMPORTANT:* When working in the digital realm for editing/printing, it is imperative that you have a calibrated monitor and that you are working under optimal lighting conditions to view image details on an LCD screen! Something like the Pantone HUEY Pro will give you decent calibration at a fair price. 
Following up on the point above - be aware that most "cheap" LCD monitors packaged with computers these days are TN displays (Twisted Nematic - a type of LCD technology), that have limited color depth, contrast detail, and viewing angles. Most graphics designers use IPS displays (In-Plane Switching) which give them access to more details of the image. Of course, IPS displays cost a whole heck of a lot more than TN displays. If you plan on committing to the digital realm, an upgrade to your monitor will help you see all the detail of your images, and give you more control over your editing process.
When exporting from Lightroom, it is imperative that you embed a "printer profile" for the printer that will be making your prints. Contact Mpix, or search their Help pages, and see if they have a printer profile available. If they do, install it in the directory that Lightroom looks for profiles, and apply it on export. It is one of the options in the image drop-down pane (where you select JPG or TIFF, etc.). If no profile is available from Mpix, you may need to embed your exports in an sRGB color space - but ask them first for what they recommend for B&W printing.
Keep your resolution high at export. 240dpi (dots per inch) is a pretty good baseline standard for printing 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10s. Just make sure your math works out for your print size. For example, if you are printing an 8x10 at 240dpi, but the dimension of your image on the longest side is only 2000pixels (say you've cropped it), your maximum print size is only 8.33 inches - so your printing company will actually have to enlarge your image to cover the size of print you ordered. That can give you artifacts in the final print - which you want to avoid. To calculate your available print dimensions, simply divide your image dimensions by your print resolution, or 2000pixels/240dpi in the example I provided. 
On the flip side to the note above, it's totally OK to have an _oversized_ image for a smaller print. Say, after divding your image dimensions by your print resolution of 240, you have a calculated document size of 16x24 ... that's just fine for making smaller prints, because detail is never lost in reduction, only when blowing-up to larger prints. That 16x24, however, should be considered as your maximum possible print size for that resolution. 
Minimize sharpening inside Lightroom. While sharpening can look good on screen, it can provide hideous results when printing to paper. Keep this in mind, and try not to get too crazy with your sharpening sliders in the Details pane.
Do not do ANY sharpening in Lightroom's Export options panel. If you've already added sharpening inside the Details pane in your processing work, added sharpening at export will only make that graininess worse. **Disable all sharpening at the final export step!

I hope this helps!


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## unfocused (Dec 23, 2011)

This may sound insulting, but I don't mean it to be: are you saying the actual prints from M-Pix aren't sharp or are you saying the files you export to M-Pix don't look sharp on screen? 

I just want to make sure you aren't trying to judge the sharpness by looking at the screen renderings that are created when you upload the files to M-Pix. I assume you are saying the actual prints aren't sharp.

I've used M-Pix quite a bit recently and printed 12 x 18 and larger. These from a 7D with no visible noise or lack of sharpness in the prints. In fact I'm pretty amazed at how sharp they are in print. So you should not have any problems with 8 x10s from a 5D. 

I'd first look at the obvious things: are you converting/exporting the files at the highest quality settings? (If exporting as JPEGs) Are you downsizing the files (you don't need to with M-Pix)? When you upload to M-Pix are you getting a warning or a message about the maximum recommended print size (a sure sign that you are exporting at too low of a resolution)? You said you are coming from B&W printing. Are you sending MPix images you want printed in B&W or in Color? If in B&W be sure you DON'T do a B&W conversion (leave the file format as RGB, but remove the color in some other fashion) Select the M-Pix "true b&w" option for paper (it's much nicer).

Others may suggest a format other than JPEG, but honestly, I've had great luck with JPEG's from M-Pix.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 23, 2011)

There is some info about preparing files for mpix here.

If you color correct your images, be sure to specify that mpix shopuld not further adjust them, I'd try letting them do it, since their coloor correction is calibrated to match their printers.

Send a e-mail and ask them what settings to use, if the answer is not covered in the link below.

http://lightroomkillertips.com/2009/the-truth-about-saving-jpegs-in-lightroom/


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## unfocused (Dec 23, 2011)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> There is some info about preparing files for mpix here.
> 
> If you color correct your images, be sure to specify that mpix should not further adjust them, I'd try letting them do it, since their color correction is calibrated to match their printers.
> 
> ...



Great link, Mt. Spokane. I've had very good luck letting mpix do the color correction. I suppose if I had something where I wanted the color to be intentionally off, I would ask them not to, but for normal images, I've been very happy with their color correcting (usually I can't tell any difference from what it looked like on my monitor)


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## 7enderbender (Dec 23, 2011)

Orangutan said:


> Leopard Lupus said:
> 
> 
> > sending them to Mpix.com for physical printing
> ...



This may be a stupid question but are there any companies that print anything BUT jpegs? I don't mean what file formats you can send to them but what they actually end up using.

I'm still under the impression that of my 5DII files a big chunk of the information will not translate to any print really (especially at sizes like 8x10 or smaller) since resolution in the digital age is limited to about 300 dpi - which makes an 8x10 print, what, a 8MP file or so at best. So essence it comes down to the question who or what will do the best job resizing your image, you in PS/LR or the company's printer software.

Do I have that approximately right? 

Also: I am still also confused by the sizing and exporting functionality of LR3 since it works significantly different and uses other terminology than PhotoShop CS5. I haven't figured out the exact meaning of the percentages for jpegs yet and how they relate to the 12 quality steps in CS5.

Thanks


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## Leopard Lupus (Dec 24, 2011)

Thank you all so much for replying!
I have looked through the links and discovered I had gone a little too "creative" in LR, and was placing settings at the highest possible level and expecting dramatic results. Sadly, my results were negative. Great link, Mt Spokane, thanks!
I look forward to sending the same photos back to Mpix.com for a more accurate final copy.


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## bookman1 (Dec 29, 2011)

I ran some test exporting an otherwise unchanged DNG file using both LR3 and PS5 as a jpg with sRGB at 12 quality in PS and 100 quality in LR. The result was apparently identical file every time in terms of pixel dimensions and opened size and visual appearance BUT the size on disc was always slightly higher for LR as compared to PS. Anybody have an explanation for that?


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