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best resolution setting when exporting in Lightroom


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Hello All.

 

When exporting images in Lightroom, what is the optimal Resolution setting?

Lightroom opens with 72 pixels per inch. Is that ok?

 

I am reading this article and it states:

 

If the pixels of an image do not change, then it has the same digital resolution no matter what number is parked in the DPI/PPI setting of the photo. One factor in the quality of printing to paper is many pixels per inch are delivered to the printer, a number between 200 and 300 is generally accepted to represent "photographic quality" at an arm's length viewing distance. But that quality, the PPI, is determined by how many pixels the image has - not the number parked in the DPI/PPI setting section

 

I have also seen comments that say web images should be 72, and print images 300 (ppi)

 

Any thoughts on what the best setting would be (for Alamy)?

 

And what would be the best setting if I just wanted to print my images to an on line album? 300 ppi?

 

So, is the bottom line - when printing to paper (as for an album I am creating via Printer Pix for example) it should be 300ppi, and when to the web set it to 72 ppi?

 

I am using LR 5.7.1

 

Thank you,
DJ

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Hello All.

 

When exporting images in Lightroom, what is the optimal Resolution setting?

Lightroom opens with 72 pixels per inch. Is that ok? I just read on a site that 

 

"Make sure you have the resolution at 72.  This will keep someone from stealing your photo and blowing it up for an advertisement."

 

I would have thought that we would want to increase the resolution (if the above comment is valid) if we want our efforts to be published.

 

Any thoughts on what the best setting would be?

 

And what would be the best setting if I just wanted to print my images to an on line album?

 

I am using LR 5.7.1

 

Thank you,

DJ

Whoever wrote that is talking is nonsense. Screen resolution is irrelevant when exporting - it is the pixel size of the image that matters.

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  • 3 months later...

DPI resolution is irrelevant for web presentation. That being said, I always use 72 for web use anyway, as that makes life harder for photo thieves intending to print it.

 

As for LR settings for export to Alamy, I don't mess with image size but I send the photos in 300 DPI and maximum quality. I add light sharpening as I shoot in camera with everything in neutral and I use sRGB as color space because this is the most compatible color space with a varied number of internet browsers, plus it's also very close to CMYK used by most professional/commercial printing and the convertion to that is easy with sRGB. Larger color spaces like ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB are great to convert to a specific color profile for inkjet fine art printing, but that's not for image banks. 

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I know that Alamy used to request Adobe RGB. Is that still the case? Any more knowledgeable people want to have a say? I do love the way Octavio's images look. Octavio, I'm not seeing captions on the cattle images.

 

Paulette

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I've always just used sRGB as for the most part that is what everyone uses. AdobeRGB is the more accurate with a wider colour gamut but unless the end to end process is done in AdobeRGB you may run in to problems. Colours will look wrong when viewing AdobeRGB files on sRGB monitors.

 

I am by no means a colour expert but the safest and trouble free method is to use sRGB.

 

As for Lightroom, I export at 90 quality and 300dpi for Alamy at whatever resolution the image is.

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11 minutes ago, NYCat said:

I know that Alamy used to request Adobe RGB. Is that still the case? Any more knowledgeable people want to have a say? I do love the way Octavio's images look. Octavio, I'm not seeing captions on the cattle images.

 

Paulette

 

Thank you! I was just finishing working on captioning those images but thanks for pointing it out!

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Paulette, I don't know Octavios secret but personally in Lightroom in Develop > Effects module I find adding 10 - 20 to Dehaze is a quick way to get some more punch to an image, depending on subject.

 

Of course that's a quick fix, if you have the time, patience and storage space you could export to Nik (free Google imaging product) and try and few settings. I use it for landscapes, it can be like peeling back a veil on an image. The best process is to export to Photoshop and work in various layers and masks with the Nik filters,  be careful with skies, my first submission was rejected here as a Nik filter very slightly pixelated the sky (hence work in layers and masks).

 

There are a lot of Youtube videos on these, one of my favourite photographers recently did a workflow guide. He has a few other videos that may interest, even if they aren't on subjects you like you can pick up tips.

 

 

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Thank you, James. I have the standalone Lightroom and don't use Photoshop so I don't have the dehaze option. I do use Nik filters and love them. I did look at the video but since I don't use Photoshop it was only slightly helpful. I'm just wondering about using sRGB when submitting to Alamy. Any opinions out there?

 

Paulette

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I set camera for AdobeRGB and shoot in RAW. Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB internally for processing, so colour could be misleading within Lightroom if you convert to sRGB after.  sRGB will have less saturation.

 

I Alamy export JPG 300 DPI in ProPhoto RGB.

 

Trend is to a higher gamut in monitors, output devices, etc so you are getting more saturated colour, more colour detail, and future proofing your collection, if you use Prophoto RGB

 

Here is a very complete discussion:

https://www.color-management-guide.com/choosing-between-srgb-adobe-rgb-and-prophoto.html

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If you're shooting raw, your choice of colour space in camera is immaterial.

 

Much like putting a DPI value in unless you're printing a hard copy (with the caveat that you should always put 300 DPI in the EXIF data because people who don't understand resolution think they're getting a "hi-res" image...)

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17 hours ago, NYCat said:

Thank you, James. I have the standalone Lightroom and don't use Photoshop so I don't have the dehaze option. I do use Nik filters and love them. I did look at the video but since I don't use Photoshop it was only slightly helpful. I'm just wondering about using sRGB when submitting to Alamy. Any opinions out there?

 

Paulette

 

PS Elements 14 has the "Haze filter".

It can be found under "Enhance".

 

Allan

 

 

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21 hours ago, spacecadet said:

It doesn't make much difference now storage is so cheap, but 90 quality is sufficient. It more than halves the file size.

Good to know - will speed-up uploads to Alamy. Thx. :-)

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20 hours ago, Octavio Campos Salles said:

DPI resolution is irrelevant for web presentation. That being said, I always use 72 for web use anyway, as that makes life harder for photo thieves intending to print it.

 

As for LR settings for export to Alamy, I don't mess with image size but I send the photos in 300 DPI and maximum quality. I add light sharpening as I shoot in camera with everything in neutral and I use sRGB as color space because this is the most compatible color space with a varied number of internet browsers, plus it's also very close to CMYK used by most professional/commercial printing and the convertion to that is easy with sRGB. Larger color spaces like ProPhoto RGB and Adobe RGB are great to convert to a specific color profile for inkjet fine art printing, but that's not for image banks. 

Many thanks, I'll switch back to sRGB. :-)

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16 hours ago, Bill Brooks said:

I set camera for AdobeRGB and shoot in RAW. Lightroom uses ProPhoto RGB internally for processing, so colour could be misleading within Lightroom if you convert to sRGB after.  sRGB will have less saturation.

 

I Alamy export JPG 300 DPI in ProPhoto RGB.

 

Trend is to a higher gamut in monitors, output devices, etc so you are getting more saturated colour, more colour detail, and future proofing your collection, if you use Prophoto RGB

 

Here is a very complete discussion:

https://www.color-management-guide.com/choosing-between-srgb-adobe-rgb-and-prophoto.html

Cheers Bill - that's useful stuff to know. BW, John :-)

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50 minutes ago, Allan Bell said:

 

PS Elements 14 has the "Haze filter".

It can be found under "Enhance".

 

Allan

 

 

 

Thank you, Allan. I just looked up which one I have and it is 12. There never seems to be the time to learn it although I have started a few times. It is worth doing, I'm sure. I'm making a note to upgrade and at least find that filter. Of course, I have a number of other notes to myself already. One thing about photography is you always have a way to fill your time.

 

Paulette

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9 hours ago, NYCat said:

 

Thank you, Allan. I just looked up which one I have and it is 12. There never seems to be the time to learn it although I have started a few times. It is worth doing, I'm sure. I'm making a note to upgrade and at least find that filter. Of course, I have a number of other notes to myself already. One thing about photography is you always have a way to fill your time.

 

Paulette

Paulette, I can't see where you need the haze filter. Your processing looks very natural and beautiful to my eyes.  I can see where the filter is useful for certain types of images, but if I were printing an animal, I would want it just like you present it.

 

I have access to the filter, but use it sparingly. Most of the time when I do use it, I use it on layers so I can brush off the effect where it looks ugly or makes something too dark.

I can't remember the last time I used it. It is nice to have, though, just in case.

Betty

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Thanks, Betty. I won't rush to learn it. When I shot in the desert of Namibia there was definitely a heat haze and I might go back and look again at those images if I can make them clearer. In my recent trip to India there may be something of the same issue because of heat and dust. I do have many other things to do before learning a new tool. It might be good to finish going through those thousands of images I took in India -- mainly the tigers. I was very, very fortunate (especially when I was on an elephant.) Such fun. I am a lucky woman.

 

Paulette

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Yes, you are a lucky gal. I'd love to have those experiences. But I can't handle heat. I black out and my heart goes funky. Can't remember when that wasn't the case. 

So those African excursions would never be in my wheelhouse. 

Betty

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Not telling anyone how to process images, but...

I work 90% of the time with NIKON 800's, shoot

RAW or NEF and now import all to LR.  Then export

as TIFF's @300DPI in 16bit aRGB color to PS.

I save all NEF files to external drives and make my

selections to finish at 12 JPEG's to upload to Alamy.

The only time I would drop an image to sRGB is when

I am doing WEB ready files for a client.

Using this workflow allows me to go back to any set

of images and my able to retrevie any image from any

shoot and work on it to the highest resolution and color

possible.

 

I am also suprised to see people saying that there is no

need to do a color balance when shooting RAW?  In the

studio I do a custom white balance and shoot a color chart

at the start of every session.  Shooting the color chart allows

me to have accurate color temp and tint settings for all finished

images.  My DSLR's, monitor and PS and LR are all set to work

in aRGB color. 

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22 minutes ago, Chuck Nacke said:

Not telling anyone how to process images, but...

I work 90% of the time with NIKON 800's, shoot

RAW or NEF and now import all to LR.  Then export

as TIFF's @300DPI in 16bit aRGB color to PS.

I save all NEF files to external drives and make my

selections to finish at 12 JPEG's to upload to Alamy.

The only time I would drop an image to sRGB is when

I am doing WEB ready files for a client.

Using this workflow allows me to go back to any set

of images and my able to retrevie any image from any

shoot and work on it to the highest resolution and color

possible.

 

 

Of course you have your workflow and if it works for you, great. However, if you use LR you don't really need to save the TIFFs, you are just occupying a lot of extra disk space. With LR you can go back at any time and edit the NEF any way you want (including crop wise, something you can't with TIFFs in PS) and then save it as wherever file type you need at every color space available. Of course this is considering you shoot RAW, as any self respecting photographer should do.

 

To be honest, today I only use PS when I'm soft proofing to convert to an inkjet printer profile or for the odd advanced tasks that LR won't do, such as panorama, removal of objects, difficult color balance fix or for selective sharpening for web or print. All the other cases, such as exporting to Alamy, I use LR only.

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5 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

Not telling anyone how to process images, but...

I work 90% of the time with NIKON 800's, shoot

RAW or NEF and now import all to LR.  Then export

as TIFF's @300DPI in 16bit aRGB color to PS.

I save all NEF files to external drives and make my

selections to finish at 12 JPEG's to upload to Alamy.

The only time I would drop an image to sRGB is when

I am doing WEB ready files for a client.

Using this workflow allows me to go back to any set

of images and my able to retrevie any image from any

shoot and work on it to the highest resolution and color

possible.

 

I am also suprised to see people saying that there is no

need to do a color balance when shooting RAW?  In the

studio I do a custom white balance and shoot a color chart

at the start of every session.  Shooting the color chart allows

me to have accurate color temp and tint settings for all finished

images.  My DSLR's, monitor and PS and LR are all set to work

in aRGB color. 

 

If you're shooting raw, in-camera colour space choice doesn't matter (i.e. aRGB or sRGB). I don't think anyone in this thread has said not to get an accurate colour balance.

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10 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

I am also suprised to see people saying that there is no

need to do a color balance when shooting RAW?  In the

studio I do a custom white balance and shoot a color chart

at the start of every session.  Shooting the color chart allows

me to have accurate color temp and tint settings for all finished

images.  My DSLR's, monitor and PS and LR are all set to work

in aRGB color. 

The key point with raw images and colour is that it doesn't matter what colour space (as Russell says) or WHITE BALANCE setting you set in camera. This is set at the raw conversion stage without any impact on the image. Not so if shooting jpegs. You can't change the white balance later without impacting on image quality. 

 

That is not to say you should not shoot a grey card or colour chart which as you say makes it much easier to get accurate colour later but it does not need to be applied in camera if shooting raw. 

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