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Fine Print FAQ's
1. What is a Lumira print?
2. What is a traditional print?
3. What's the difference between photo prints made through Fine Print Imaging and prints made through Fine Print Express?
4. Can I buy Individual Lumira Prints?
5. I can't find the size of print I want (9x12 for example), in the Lumira print price chart. Is that not available?
6. Do you make 4x6 or 3x5 prints?
7. Can I have borders placed on my Lumira prints?
8. Why do I have to crop my 35mm slide to get a full 16x20 print?
9. What is a giclée?
10. Why are borders included in giclée printing?
11. What is a substrate?
12. What’s the difference between a Premier Scan, a Raw Scan and an Archive Scan?
13. How do I know what size scan to order?
14. What's the difference between a Tif and JPEG?
15. What is "resolution" and why should I care?
16. How do I get copies of my scans?
17. I already have digital files. How should I send them to Fine Print?
19. What is a print ready file?
20. Where can I fine your printer profiles?
21. How should I use printer profiles?
23. I have original artwork. Can I do my own copy work?
24. I no longer have my original artwork/film. What else can I use as a color guide?
25. Why should I order a proof print prior to printing my final order?
26. Do you keep copies of my digital files?
27. If I order reprints at a later date, will they match the original printing?
1. What is a Lumira™ print?
A Lumira print, a trade marked product of Fine Print, is a digital photograph print made from a digital file using a ZBE Chromira 5x printer and Fuji Crystal archive paper. Lumira digital photo prints are notable because of their exceptional sharpness, color saturation and color accuracy. Lumira prints may be printed on your choice or Fuji Crystal Archive paper: matte, lustre or gloss. For more info on the Chromira printer, go to www.zbe.com. For info on Fuji paper, go to www.fujifilmusa.com.
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2. What is a traditional print?
A traditional print is a color photographic print produced using a negative, an enlarger and Fuji Crystal Archive paper. A traditional photo print differs from a Lumira print in that the traditional process is completely non-digital. Since 1975, Fine Print has been recognized a one of the premier North American labs producing traditional photographic prints.
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3. What’s the difference between photo prints made through Fine Print Imaging and prints made through Fine Print Express?
Prints produced by Fine Print Imaging are made to the highest of photographic printing standards. They are color, contrast and density corrected to match a customer provided guide. Master color technicians, working closely with the customer, are involved in every step of the printing process. Once the print is approved by the customer, both a guide print and a digital file are saved at Fine Print for future printings.
Fine Print Express is an online-only printing service designed to be used by photographers who have proficiency with Adobe Photoshop, color theory and color management. Prints made through Fine Print Express are made from customer provided digital files which are considered to be print ready. Fine Print technicians visually inspect Express files before printing and may make minor color and density adjustments. Express prints are also visually inspected for flaws prior to shipping.
Both services use precisely calibrated digital printing equipment and high quality photographic paper. All Fine Print Imaging prints are produced on a ZBE Chromira printer. 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 Express Prints may be produced on a Noritsu printer.
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4. Can I buy individual Lumira prints?
Yes, but only in sizes larger than 11x14. If you would like to order individual prints in smaller sizes, use our Fine Print Express online printing service.
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5. I can’t find the size of print I want (9x12, for example), in the Lumira print price chart. Is that not available?
You can order any size Lumira print you want as long as one dimension is 30" or smaller. To order a print size not shown on the Lumira price chart, find a size that is close to the one you are ordering. Using 9x12 as an example, you find “8x12", but you need 9 inches on one dimension, so you can’t order an 8x12. The next size on our price list is 11x14. Both 9 inches and 12 inches fit within the 11x14 size. You will therefore order a 9x12 print but pay the 11x14 price. Naturally, since you’re paying for an 11x14, you could actually order and receive an 11x14.
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6. Do you make 4x6 or 3x5 prints?
Yes, but the most economical way to do this is through Fine Print Express. For Lumira prints, see “I can’t find the size I want...” in FAQ.
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7. Can I have borders placed on my Lumira prints?
Yes. Make sure that you specify the size of borders and whether you want white or black borders. Keep in mind that the borders will be proportionate to the size of the image and the outside dimensions size of the finished print. For example, if you order a 16x20 print with borders and the image size is 11x18, you will have two 1 inch borders and two 2.5 inch borders.
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8. Why do I have to crop my 35mm slide to get a full 16x20 print?
The simple fact that you have this question means that you may be having trouble understanding proportions. If we print all of your slide on a 16x20 sheet of paper, only 13.25 x 20 inches of the paper will be printed on. In other words,13.5" x 20" matches the proportions of a 35mm slide. In order to cover the entire 16 inches of the paper, we have to enlarge not only the 13.5" side, but also the 20" side. To print a 16x20 print means that we have to “crop out” the long dimension of your slide. For a close approximation, a good rule of thumb is that you will have to remove (crop) 1/4" from the long dimension of the slide to produce a standard sized 8x10, 11x14 or 16x20 print. For a assistance in determining proportions, here is a great online proportion calculator.
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9. What is a giclée?
Giclée (pronounced Zhee-Clay) is believed to be derived from the French word “gicler” which means “to squirt, to spray”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giclee. A giclée print is produced by a specialized large format inkjet printer using archival, permanent inks and high quality, archival canvas or watercolor paper. The process is relatively new having its beginnings in the1990s when a IRIS piezo inkjet printer was modified to make high quality photographic prints on watercolor paper. Now a variety of printers is used to create giclée prints. We use both Roland and Epson printers. From a marketing perspective, giclée prints are now considered to be some of the highest quality prints available and are accepted by galleries and museums throughout the world.
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10. Why are borders included in giclée pricing?
Our giclée prints are priced by the square inch. Printing substrates used in fine art giclée printing (watercolor and canvas) are very costly. Therefore if you request borders on your prints, you are billed for the total amount of material you request, whether or not we print on the material.
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11. What is a substrate?
Substrate is a printing term used to describe the material on which images are printed. Our giclée substrates include heavy weight canvas and watercolor paper. Our Lumira and traditional print substrates are Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper.
12. What’s the difference between a Premier Scan, a Raw Scan and an Archive Scan?
All of our drum scans are produced on our ICG 12000 ppi drum scanner. (www.icg.ltd.uk.) When compared to Nikon Cool Scans, drum scans are notable for a slight but observable increases in sharpness, color separation and dynamic range (tonal differences between highlight and shadow details of each pixel).
Our Premier drum scan includes clean-up, minor scratch removal, color, density and contrast correction and are crafted to closely match the original transparency. Also included in the price of the scan is either an 8x10 or a 16x20 proof.
A “Raw” drum scan includes basic clean-up and color/density correction. Included in the price of raw scans is burning to a CD.
An Archive Scan is a high quality raw scan produced from 35mm slides or negatives on our Nikon Cool Scan 5000 ED scanner. These scans are priced and designed for people who have a large quantity of 35mm film that they want to preserve as digital files.
13. How do I know what size scan to order?
We’ve provided a chart that shows what size scans will yield the best results for various film sizes. There is a common misperception that bigger is better. Each film format has a set amount of information available for scanning (for example, 35mm film has approximately 65 megs of recordable information). In lay person terms, increasing the scan size simple means that the scanner will be required to “invent” pixels to place in between the actual information recorded from the film. The good news is that today’s printers, especially our Chromira digital photo printer that produces our Lumira prints, do an incredible job of printing sharp, color saturated prints in large sizes from relatively small files. When in doubt about scan size, ask your customer service representative.
14. What's difference between TIF and JPEG?
JPEG (pronounced jay-peg) is an acronym for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It is a lossy file format. Each time an image is saved as a JPEG, information is compressed, and when the image is re-opened, the data that is opened is based on the compressed information. Some of the original information is lost along the way. For this reason, the JPEG file format is not good for image editing, although it can be a good format for output to various printing devices and for web uploads. The unofficial site for JPEG’s is www.jpeg.org You can find more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg.
TIFF is an acronym for Tag(ged) Image File Format. It is a loss less file format and one of the most popular and flexible of the current public file formats. Fine Print uses TIFF files for printing and requests that customers send us files in TIFF format. TIFFs are the file format most frequently used when saving an image after editing in Photoshop (when the ultimate purpose for the image is output to a printer). TIFF files are larger than JPEG files, and for that reason, aren’t used in digital camera capture. Check this site , which promotes itself as the “Unofficial Tiff Home Page”, for a more thorough description. http://home.earthlink.net/~ritter/tiff/ or, visit our friends at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF.
15. What is “resolution” and why should I care?
Resolution is a term that describes how much detail an image (or a monitor displaying an image) contains. The higher the resolution, the more information the image contains. When referring to digital images, resolution interacts with image size. For example, a digital file which is 8”x10” and has a resolution of 300 pixels per inch is said to have a higher resolution than a digital file which is 8”x10” and has a resolution of 150 pixels per inch (ppi). Fine Print prints most images at the output size at a resolution of 300 ppi.
16. How do I get copies of my scans?
If you have previously ordered Premier Scans or scans from your original artwork, you’re in luck. We retain all of these scans on our Image Archiving System (IAS). Simply contact your customer service rep, provide them with your image title and number, and request that we send you a copy of your digital file(s). We retain both PSD files (Photoshop files that are color/density corrected but not cropped or sized) and TIFF files (which are purposed for printing an image with a set crop and size). There is a fee for providing CDs of you images. See our "other services" page for details.
If you ordered Fine Print Raw Scans or Fine Print Archive Scans, CDs are provided only at the time of the original scan. We do not retain these scans in our files and cannot provide CDs after the original order for these scans has been completed.
17. I already have digital files. How should I send them to Fine Print?
You have three options for sending files to Fine Print. With all options, you are required to either send “Print Ready Files” (see question 19) or, send information with the files requesting that we alter the files per your directions. Additional fees will be assessed if you request that we alter your digital files.
1) You can FTP the files to us. See question # 18 for details.
2) You can send us a CD or DVD with your images enclosed.
3) You can order prints through Fine Print Express which allows you to upload digital files and order prints online. See our online printing page for details.
18. What is FTP?
FTP is an acronym for File Transfer Protocol, which allows a user at one computer to send a digital file to another computer at an off-premise location. The location receiving the file acts as an FTP “server” and must have both software and hardware which allows this computer to both store and receive digital files. The “client” computer, which must have specialized FTP software, initiates the request to upload files to the server, download files from the server, and rename or delete files on the server. Customers who wish to FTP files to Fine Print are required to contact us for a username and password. All FTP uploads and downloads are completely confidential and are hidden from other users. If you do not have FTP software, we suggest that you go to http://software.visicommedia.com/en/products/aceftpfreeware/.
and download their freeware software.
19. What’s a print ready file?
Print Ready Files are digital files prepared by you for the purpose of printing on Fine Print’s equipment. For files to be considered print ready, the image must adhere to the following requirements:
* RGB and in the Adobe RGB 1998 work space.
* 300 ppi at output dimensions.
* Is 8 bit and does not contain layers or alpha channels.
* TIFF with no compression.
* File name has maximum of 30 characters.
* For Lumira printing, the appropriate output profile must be embedded. Images intended for ink printing should NOT have profiles embedded.
20. Where can I find your printer profiles?
Go to our ICC Profiles page, you will find profiles for Lumira photo prints and watercolor giclée prints. Make sure that you follow directions for downloading the profiles to the appropriate location on your computer.
21. How should I use printer profiles?
Once the profile is saved in the appropriate folder, you can open your image in Photoshop. If your image is not already in the Adobe RGB 1998 work space, convert it by selecting (Image – Mode – Convert to Profile) from the top menu bar. Use Adobe Ace as the Engine, and Perceptual as the intent for converting. To apply the Epson profile select (View – Proof Setup – Custom) in the menu bar at the top of the screen. Select Perceptual for the intent and (Epson watercolor paper) for the profile. As long as your monitor is properly calibrated, you should be viewing a fairly accurate soft proof that is ready for final adjustments and modifications.
22. How do you copy artwork?
Fine Print utilizes the industry’s most advanced 4x5 digital back for copying artwork, the Better Light Super6K. Lighting for your artwork is provided by Northlight HID copy lights, specifically designed to bring out the best in the Betterlight back. We can accommodate artwork up to 4' by 5'. Once our skilled experts copy your artwork, the digital file created is carefully adjusted in Adobe Photoshop so that it closely matches your artwork.
23. I have original artwork. Can I do my own copy work?
Simple answer... yes. But, the quality of your prints is directly related to the quality of the digital file used for the printing. Our BetterLight 4x5 digital back and matching Northlight HID lights have the capability of producing images that far exceed the capabilities of even the most sophisticated 35mm digital or film cameras. If you are hoping for color matched, incredibly sharp, faithful reproductions of your artwork, there is no substitute for professionally copied artwork. If you intend on sending us digital files or slides that you copied yourself, please contact us before shooting the artwork and we’ll give you some pointers.
24. I no longer have my original artwork/film. What else can I use as color guide?
Without your artwork or a transparency that closely matches your artwork as a guide, it is very difficult for our printing technicians to accurately reproduce your artwork. Providing feathers from birds or a bouquet of flowers used as a model to paint in the artwork may sound like a viable solution, but nothing can match the pigments in your painting like your painting. If you find yourself without an accurate guide, your best bet it to provide us with verbal directions and request a proof print. Once you receive the proof (we send you a copy and keep one at File Print), we now have a tool for discussing what changes to make in order to achieve the closest match to your original.
25. Why should I order a proof print prior to printing my final order?
Ordering a proof print is the best - maybe the only - way to guarantee that your final prints meet you expectations. Fine art printing is a subjective art form. Even if you provide us with transparencies, your original or guide prints, there is no assurance that our printing equipment can exactly match the colors and tonal ranges in your original. Exact matches are subjective and rarely achievable. It is important that you become a part of the printing process by asking for and assessing a proof print prior to final printing.
26. Do you keep copies of my digital files?
We keep copies of all files that were used to print giclée and Lumira prints. We do not keep files printed through Fine Print Express, nor do we keep files where a raw or archive scan was requested.
27. If I order reprints at a later date, will they match the original printing?
Yes, within reason. While we maintain extremely rigid controls on our printing equipment and monitors, factors beyond our control can affect repeatability. Upgrades to equipment, changes in paper, chemicals and ink technology, software changes, aging of enlarging lamps... these and many other factors make it virtually impossible to guarantee exact matches to previous printings. Having said that, Fine Print has developed a reputation for being the best in the fine art printing world at providing consistent, exceptionally close matches with all reprint orders.