Tutorial: How to size digital images for printing using Lightroom 5

Tutorial: How to size digital images for printing using Lightroom 5

I’ve been judging at camera clubs for a while now and many clubs have a print category in their competitions. One of most frequently asked questions from club members is: “How do I get my digital image the right size for printing?”

So: ask and ye shall receive! Here’s a short (5+ minutes) video tutorial to help you size digital images for printing using Lightroom 5. (PS: If you use Photoshop or Photoshop elements, then check out the tutorial on how to resize images for printing using Photoshop.)

A few things to take note:

• It’s very important to make sure your monitor is calibrated to the printer you’re using (consult your print lab if you need calibration information). Otherwise, you may find that the printed image looking very unlike what you saw on screen.
• You’ll need to work out the crop dimensions of your print first and actually crop the image to these dimensions using the Lightroom Crop Overlay tool eg. 4×6, 5×7, 8×10, 1×1 etc.
• Find out from your print lab the colour space they use. Most labs (including the mini-labs found at retail chains) use sRGB, though professional labs will use AdobeRGB (1998).
• Sharpening: the video describes sharpening for print output using the presets available in Lightroom. This is because it assumes that you are using only Lightroom to work on your images and that you haven’t done any sharpening in Lightroom (using the Sharpening options in the Effects tab).

Okay, now that we’ve cleared that up, here’s the video: