When you order our print-ready service, we don’t modify your image files in any way. We just move the images to our print queue and print as received. Colour correction, retouching and any other image enhancement are your responsibility. Our responsibility is to faithfully reproduce the image you have created.

Click here for our “Help With Printing” resource pages.

Click here for our File Specifications.

Print-ready gives you greater creative control at the expense of time and responsibility

If you order Print-Ready Service we assume the files are ready for printing. Recommended for experts only, good results will depend on (a) your ability to edit and colour correct images to a professional level (b) your understanding and implementation of colour management and proofing principles, so that the printing you receive back is what you expect.

Please note: We don’t modify your files and therefore don’t offer no-charge remakes. Always install our ICC lab profile and soft-proof your images on a calibrated monitor.

Your Print-Ready files will NOT be reviewed by our staff before printing. Always check your files carefully before sending them to us and complete any remedial artwork YOU feel is necessary. Reprinting and repairs can be expensive and disappointing if problems are not discovered until after the prints have been assembled in the album – or worse, shipped to your client.

Files must be supplied as flattened TIFFs or JPEGs cropped and sized to match the finished print dimensions at 250 dpi. HOWEVER, as per our file specifications, layered PSD files are essential if you want us to make Digital Copies of matted album page layouts, and will incur extra file handling charges (check your price list for details).

File handling of any sort, if required, incurs extra charges.

Things to consider

Print-Ready service gives you greater creative control, but sucess depends on your ability to manage and edit images to a professional level that satisfies you and your customers. Your “Photoshop skills” are fundamental to success, as is your understanding of colour management. There are more opportunities for things to go wrong between you and the lab than with Full Colour Service.

To put this another way, if you're using Print-Ready, think of yourself as a target shooter. Our printer is the target you need to hit. Chances are, if you miss, it’s because your aim was off, not because we moved the printer. Of course, it’s our job to maintain and calibrate our printers and ensure the preview profile we publish remains accurate.

Besides “creative control”, the other attractions of Print-Ready is a lower price. This is undeniable, but we recommend you take into account your in-studio costs and opportunity costs:

• More computer work (because you’re doing it yourself) and therefore less time shooting pictures and selling them.

• You miss out on an “extra pair of eyes” at the lab (we always review our Full Colour Service clients’ work before sending it for printing.

What you’ll need to get it right

1. A high quality, calibrated colour monitor set up in a suitable working area with constant lighting (an essential for all work with images).

2. Our lab ICC Profiles. Currently we offer two profiles. Normally you’ll apply the profile for our standard Lustre finish when you soft-proof your work. If you wish to print on metallic paper you should use the Metallic profile.

3. The ability to understand and apply the ICC profiles of your monitor(s) and the capture device (typically your camera or our scanner) as well as our printers.

4. To preview the image on your monitor as the printer will produce it before you send the file to the lab. (This is critical: your monitor won’t show you how the printed image will look unless you preview the image on-screen as our printer will print it. And printing the image on your printer won’t necessarily show you how it will look off our printer either – click here if you want printing that you do in studio to match printing done by us as closely as possible).

5. To transmit all the necessary data (and instructions) to the lab so that we can faithfully reproduce it.