Could you demistify exporting and sizing for me please?

[Neda]

My first log in and my first post...so please bare with me if the topic is a little too newby for your taste I am new to LR and so far I am in love. I did the adobe classroom in a book and had numerous 'AHA' moments but this is still a bit of a mystery.

If you were to give somebody a cd of images, so they can print them off themselves in...let's say standard sizes (4x6, 5x7 and 8x1') what would be the best size/resolution to export as to make sure you have all the basis covered?
(caution:cheesy moment coming up :roll when i received my wedding photos for example from my photographers they were all huge files that could be printed from a 4x6 to 24x36 without any fidling and no weird cropping- just upload and print! How can I export such files from Lightroom?

Also, I tried exporting in particular sizes...for example 4x6, and the photos always get weirdly cropped when uploaded to the lab's site. When I do resizing in CS3, I don't have that problem but...it is so much easier to do it in Lightroom, in batches! well it would be...if it worked for me. Plus, when I resize a photo in LR it is not showing the same size in CS3! How come?

If somebody could outline the steps for me, or offer some insight as to settings i might have to change...that would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you all!!!

 

[dj_paige]

I believe that if you want the cropping done properly, you have to crop it to 4x6 yourself, if it isn't already 4x6. (This is not re-sizing, by the way)

And, if you want the image also as 5x7 and 8x1', you have to make individual crops at those sizes of each photo.

So, start with your original photo. Make two virtual copies. Crop the original to 4x6, next crop one of the virtual copies to 5x7 and the next virtual copy at 8x1'. Then you can export these.

When you do the export, you no longer need to do any re-sizing (assuming your photo had enough pixels in the first place). Most printers want 3'' ppi (some get away with 24' ppi), so an 8x1' should have 24''x3''' pixels (or more) at 3'' ppi.

 

[Brad Snyder]

(caution:cheesy moment coming up ) when i received my wedding photos for example from my photographers they were all huge files that could be printed from a 4x6 to 24x36 without any fidling and no weird cropping- just upload and print! How can I export such files from Lightroom?

It's necessary to realize that the shapes of common commercial print sizes are subtly different from one another, in terms of width vs. height. This trips up many beginning photogs. dj_paige suggested the generally accepted way to work with this situation.

To answer your specific question, it's likely that this particular pro, shot and cropped the distribution photos in such a manner, that they were what I term 'crop-safe'. That is she/he left enough room around the edges so that regardless of the print size you chose, nobody's head was chopped off, or poor Uncle Bob at the far left of the family group shot didn't disappear. If that was true of all your images, then you received excellent work from a thoughtful pro.

Extending dj_paiges thoughts, I just had a similar discussion with another member a few days ago about an efficient workflow. See here, the pertinent parts are later in the thread.

 

[Neda]

Thank you both...I will have to keep messing with it, but i will try both your suggestions.