SUPPORT INFORMATION

Welcome to the riaan West online hand over support information page. Here you will find all the important information you require to get the most from your images / video that Riaan West handed over to you. Please note that this page is subject to updates without notice to the client.

PRINTING / FRAMING / ALBUMS

When it comes to the printing of the clients images, ranging from albums, photobooks, framing,  prints etc. Printing is an entirely different entity from taking photographs. (Simply put, printing is a world of it's own.) various technical factors often have a huge effect on the quality of the print and on the end product. A general rule for printing, the cheaper the printing the lower the quality. In the world of printing, you get what you pay for.

WHAT MAKES PRINTING CHALLENGING IS THE FOLLOWING

Print companies do not often consult the client on all the different technicalities when printing. Print settings have a huge effect on the final print product. For example, RGB is ideal for web (but not meant for print). CMYK is primarily used for print. Changing DPI (dots per inch) in post production to fit a picture in the frame affects the quality.Print companies hardly take responsibility for print quality. Riaan West advises the client to do thorough research and gather all the necessary information needed, before making a huge investment into printing, framing, albums etc.

RGB & CMYK

A good rule of thumb is anything dealing with the web should always be in RGB (Red, GREEN, Blue) and printing should be in CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)

PRINT TERMINOLOGY

DOTS PER INCH: This is the measurement printing companies use to determine how sharp an image is.

GLOSS: Papers ultra smooth to shiny appearance.

MATT: Paper that is not marred by fingerprints, with non-glare finish.

COMPUTER SCREEN DISCOLORATION: Screen burn on a display. Caused by cumulative non-uniform use of pixels.

MONITOR: Calibration ensures that colors are displayed accurately and consistently across displays and for optimum printing quality.

MEGABYTES (MB): Measure of an image size ranging from 1-60 megabytes. One megabyte (1mb) = 1000kb 

used for high res images.

RAW: Uncompressed size 50mb-120mb

KILOBYTES: One megabyte = 1000 kilobytes used for low res images.

PRINT FILE FORMATS

TIFF: A lot less compression, may be edited and re-saved without Loosing image quality.

PNG: Used to store graphics for web images. Bitmap colors similar colors to GIF.

PSD: Photoshop file uses multiple layered files and in high volume data work format.

JPEG: Image standard format. 

HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGES: JPEG images with no loss of image details. Saved at a minimum of 300dpi. Riaan West saves HR at 600dpi.

LOW RESOLUTION IMAGES: Images that are not sharply defined, they are grainy. low res (72dpi) looks fabulous on a device and for web viewing.

GENERAL NOTES

A general rule of thumb. Prints are 1/3rd smaller than they appear on screens.Viewing images on screens that are discolored and appear green, blue or yellow. RW suggests viewing images on other calibrated screens. Apple screens on phones are still calibrated 1:1. Dell pc's, HP, Acer, Nokia devices are usually discolored.4K and higher screen resolutions usually make images appear too artificial and loses its natural look and feel.Best practice is to always view images on different devices. Technology develops at a rapid rate and the client's device might be outdated and in need of an upgrade.Opening images on an outdated and slow device will take long to open and view.

DONT'S OF PRINTING

Never use an online printing software program to order photo albums. (Images get resized to a very low quality for albums). Consider working with a print consultant. Never use image sizes of 1000K or less. Don't zoom images, crop them and then print, because of the dpi close range and far range aspect ratio. 

DO'S OF PRINTING

Always print high res files.Print on a MATT finish. Print images on calibrated printers with a 1:1 color calibration. Use high res images 10meg-60meg for prints, photo albums and frames.