Prep for newspaper

John McWilliams wrote:

Some of my photos go to a lovely local newspaper for their sports and social stories, and for the most part they’ll be printed in B+W, seldom more than 4 x 4" and usually cropped from that.

I usually export from CSI and convert to grayscale while downsizing using Bicubic sharper. Sharpening is hit or miss, and generally I don’t unless the pic seems to really need it. Levels are also not always consistent, and they may get changed anyway by the production guy at the paper.

Is there a suggested level of sharpening for, say, 1200 x 1200 pixel images that’ll be used in a typical local newspaper in grayscale? Or a nice workflow I could convert to an action in PS? I am also using Lightroom.

Can anyone take a stab at this? Or suggest where I might post to get an answer?

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John McWilliams

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

Can anyone take a stab at this? Or suggest where I might post to get an answer?

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John McWilliams

As no-one has replied, I’ll pass on my limited experiences!!! I submit my images to my local paper, they usually print them in colour! – sports pictures – golf and suchlike and this is what they told me they wanted!!

"For future reference images should be about 21 x 14 cm < you can normally crop to 2cm along the length and let the depth take care of itself > with a resolution no less than 180 dpi pixels/inch and saved as a medium j-peg attachment"

They tend to print fairly large images!! so I send them largish files and let them reduce them to the size they want! they never look too good in a newspaper anyway!! One thing they did say was that they tend to desaturate images to some extend (reducing the colour that is)

As an aside I was busily downsizing about 40 images for a website, they must be no more than 600 pixels wide! – I use a low size image in my camera 1728×1152 for this work on the theory there is no point in taking larger images as they have to be reduced in any case! More to the point I have been experimenting with the various downsampling methods available in CS, using copies of the same image.
I tried a Stair steps image resizer (a script downloaded for free from Adobe Exchange) I also tried Bicubic, smoother and sharper and to be honest I could not really tell much difference between these four methods – they all looked equally poor!!!
So I was just about to start a google search to research this very subject of downsizing! So if anyone can help it would be appreciated!!

John McWilliams wrote:

Can anyone take a stab at this? Or suggest where I might post to get an answer?

Send the image "as is". They can cope with digital images because that’s what they work with all the time,.

j wrote:;

John McWilliams wrote:

Can anyone take a stab at this? Or suggest where I might post to get an answer?

Send the image "as is". They can cope with digital images because that’s what they work with all the time

That’s less than useless. I am trying to be helpful by not sending huge= 14.7 MP- images when 900 x 900 pixels is plenty.

The production person just converts a color image to grayscale, no channel balancing, no sharpening, sometimes some contrast adjustment.

==

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John McWilliams

Harry Limey wrote:

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

Can anyone take a stab at this? Or suggest where I might post to get an answer?

—
John McWilliams

As no-one has replied, I’ll pass on my limited experiences!!! I submit my images to my local paper, they usually print them in colour! – sports pictures – golf and suchlike and this is what they told me they wanted!!

"For future reference images should be about 21 x 14 cm < you can normally crop to 2cm along the length and let the depth take care of itself > with a resolution no less than 180 dpi pixels/inch and saved as a medium j-peg attachment"

180 PPI is a made up number. They really should give dimensions in terms of pixels along an edge.

They tend to print fairly large images!! so I send them largish files and let them reduce them to the size they want! they never look too good in a newspaper anyway!! One thing they did say was that they tend to desaturate images to some extend (reducing the colour that is)

No, they often don’t look so good, but at least I want to give the best chance I can to have them look good.

As an aside I was busily downsizing about 40 images for a website, they must be no more than 600 pixels wide! – I use a low size image in my camera 1728×1152 for this work on the theory there is no point in taking larger images as they have to be reduced in any case! More to the point I have been experimenting with the various downsampling methods available in CS, using copies of the same image.
I tried a Stair steps image resizer (a script downloaded for free from Adobe Exchange) I also tried Bicubic, smoother and sharper and to be honest I could not really tell much difference between these four methods – they all looked equally poor!!!
So I was just about to start a google search to research this very subject of downsizing! So if anyone can help it would be appreciated!!

I use bicubic sharper when i downsize, and usually start with the largest file I have of the shot. Convert to sRGB, and save at a high level.

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john mcwilliams

John McWilliams wrote:

j wrote:;

Send the image "as is". They can cope with digital images because that’s what they work with all the time

That’s less than useless. I am trying to be helpful by not sending huge= 14.7 MP- images when 900 x 900 pixels is plenty.

As an editor, I would prefer to make such decisions. The fact that you have to ask "what they want" suggests you might err and waste their time.

John McWilliams wrote:

I use bicubic sharper when i downsize, and usually start with the largest file I have of the shot. Convert to sRGB, and save at a high level.

Vast downsampling is destructive. Bicubic Sharper often isn’t sharper to the eye. Finally, preparing an image that will be a newspaper picture requires entirely different treatment to look best.

j wrote:

John McWilliams wrote:

j wrote:;

Send the image "as is". They can cope with digital images because that’s what they work with all the time

That’s less than useless. I am trying to be helpful by not sending huge= 14.7 MP- images when 900 x 900 pixels is plenty.

As an editor, I would prefer to make such decisions. The fact that you have to ask "what they want" suggests you might err and waste their time.

Is there any chance you, as an editor, could address the question as asked? Or simply describe you prepare images for B_W printing that are sent in "as is"?

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John McWilliams

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

j wrote:

SNIP

As an editor, I would prefer to make such decisions. The fact that you have to ask "what they want" suggests you might err and waste their time.

Is there any chance you, as an editor, could address the question as asked? Or simply describe you prepare images for B_W printing that are sent in "as is"?

I get the impression that it is made to look more difficult than it technically is (mainly depends on output size and printing press related parameters). However, there are (last minute) editorial decicions being made as to the actual size that the published image will have. Therefore it helps the workflow to start with a large enough image to accomodate the specific workflow that is used.

In addition, unskilled manipulation may (literally) cost additional effort to repair the losses, if at all possible.

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Bart

Bart van der Wolf wrote:

"John McWilliams" wrote in message

j wrote:

SNIP

As an editor, I would prefer to make such decisions. The fact that you have to ask "what they want" suggests you might err and waste their time.

Is there any chance you, as an editor, could address the question as asked? Or simply describe you prepare images for B_W printing that are sent in "as is"?

I get the impression that it is made to look more difficult than it technically is (mainly depends on output size and printing press related parameters). However, there are (last minute) editorial decicions being made as to the actual size that the published image will have. Therefore it helps the workflow to start with a large enough image to accomodate the specific workflow that is used.

In addition, unskilled manipulation may (literally) cost additional effort to repair the losses, if at all possible.

I do understand the trade offs from an Editor’s viewpoint. But this is a small paper, one production man, who does a good job, but he’s not got much time to spend on any image.

Therefor, I want to set up an action that gets him an image that’s downsized significantly but not too much, adjusted for proper sharpening and contrast, both of which I assume are quite different from prepping images for photo printing.

The other guy active in this thread seems intent on posting a lot, but not answering my question.

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john mcwilliams

"John McWilliams" wrote in message
SNIP

I do understand the trade offs from an Editor’s viewpoint. But this is a small paper, one production man, who does a good job, but he’s not got much time to spend on any image.

If he appreciates the help, he should give you some details about the raster they use for printing images. You probably should provide him with 2x the amount of hor/ver ‘resolution’ for a ‘given output size’ (a size which only he can decide at the last moment).

Therefor, I want to set up an action that gets him an image that’s downsized significantly but not too much, adjusted for proper sharpening and contrast, both of which I assume are quite different from prepping images for photo printing.

Even if you know how much downsampling is needed, the act of downsampling is a bit of an art, depending on the output modality, but better than average papers use more advanced methods than Photoshop offers
( http://www.xs4all.nl/~bvdwolf/main/foto/down_sample/down_sam ple.htm). ‘ImageMagick’ offers a number of choices which allow to adjust for subject matter.

There may also be other considerations, like offering a service selling prints of published pictures, which *could* also require a 300 ppi image at the required photo print size (5×7", 8×10" ?), something quite common in my geography (the Netherlands).

Proper sharpening depends on he characteristics of the
screen/paper/ink combination, best left to the pre-press production people.

Knowing about contrast alone is not enough, one needs to know about things like dot gain (ink spreading as a function of paper and ink choice, especially important at dense areas of the image), which could be handled by a dedicated profile.

You’d probably help most by offering an unsharpened 8×10" regular photoprint quality at 150-300 ppi, but I might be wrong since I don’t know your particular local situation.

The other guy active in this thread seems intent on posting a lot, but not answering my question.

That is also my impression, but then I cannot be too specific either, without knowing the editor’s considerations. Ask the editor how you can help him/her.

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Bart