Getting prints of blush-worthy pieces

I came to a recent realization. I have a naughty piece in my queue that I want to have printed.... but I don't really want to use my usual local print shop. I love the place I go to and they are AWESOME.... but its a couple of older guys and they don't really do that sort of thing. Plus, I have to keep going back there!

So does anyone around here have experience with the online printing services? I really need to know about the quality and all because it can vary widely (I know this from personal experience, my current print shop wasn't my first). I know you can buy your own prints through DA, but I don't have a sub and it irks me how much I would have to pay. And I don't know how good they are.

I want to keep doing the naughty pieces (Frost is making some more improvements to my site, so is earning himself a naughty Dark Frost piece sometime in the future), so I need to figure out this printing situation ^.^

Thanks in advance for any help/advice!

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I've been in the printing industry for over 20 years, so I'd suggest you try some of your local printing shops. Call around to find one that does digital output, and has no objection to more mature content. (I assume it's "R", not "X" from the "naughty" description. "X" would be more difficult to find, but not impossible.) Find out what digital format they want (they can probably take it as is).

Take a printout with you to confirm they have no objection, and so they can be sure not to output it while there a troop of kids in the shop.

Regardless of whether you find a local one or use an online one, remember there's a definite chance your output(s) won't be the only ones. A good shop shouldn't make unauthorized printouts, but people are people. I've worked in the printing industry for over 20 years, and it does happen.

Be aware (if you aren't already) that JPG reduces the quality of the image every time it's saved, so avoid opening and resaving the image as much as you can if it's JPG. Copying and/or sending it is fine. It's whenever you hit "Save" or "Save As" that it does the damage. Even the highest quality setting reduces the quality each time, it just does the least damage.

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I worked at 4 different print shops, and none of them would have had a problem with outputting a naughty piece. Heck one of the places even printed a local magazine aimed at married couples with hmmm, alternative lifestyles let's say. We were asked not to spread that information around town though, and one of the pressmen refused to print it.

My guess, is that if you went to the two older guys you normally do, they'd output 2.....

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@IronHoss
@Payamma Gurl
I'm sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to hell. ~Sheridan, The Fall of Night

I don't believe the issue is the print shop refusing to do the pieces. I think her issue is more that she doesn't really want to get a rep at a place she keeps going back to (because they're totally awesome). Not that the pieces are going to be dirty or anything.

She's looking for anybody who may have used an online print place before and if so, what did they use and what kind of quality did they get back.

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Wassy:

My wife's company, the one she works for, uses Myphotopipe.com - they're based in Atlanta, have a very easy to use interface and print on everything from quality watercolor paper to canvas, framed or not framed, matted or not matted...

I had a painting photographed here in Canada, uploaded it to their site, it was mailed out in 4 days to NYC, and my aunt (visiting my mom in Long Island) living in Mexico brought it back with her safe and sound. The quality was excellent and it was mailed in a very durable tube for travel. Check em out, I refer all my clients to them, who want this type of printing.

LJ

PS: they also do books, was gonna order a book of my finished pieces for Xmas gifts.

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Be aware (if you aren't already) that JPG reduces the quality of the image every time it's saved, so avoid opening and resaving the image as much as you can if it's JPG. Copying and/or sending it is fine. It's whenever you hit "Save" or "Save As" that it does the damage. Even the highest quality setting reduces the quality each time, it just does the least damage.

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This is why I send TIFFs or TGAs of my finished pieces at full resolution to the client in a zip file. Printing!

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I guess I should have said "some of your other local print shops".

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This is why I send TIFFs or TGAs of my finished pieces at full resolution to the client in a zip file. Printing!

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How big is your average file Foo? I send zipped jpegs anywhere from 1.5 - 3GB, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Tiffs HUGE? I'm asking only cause if I could send a smaller file, I would. I just work really large by habit... I can work smaller, but I find it less satisfying. And how big is sending a TGA? Do all of your clients have photoshop or something to open Tiffs and TGAs with, or will any software open those? Okay no more ?s

LJ

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Jumping in again 'cause this is something I'm familiar with. Tiffs are indeed huge, but usually compress very well, with no loss of image quality.

JPG, for those who don't already know, compresses the file by averaging out adjacent pixels so it can store less data to recreate the image. This can reduce the sharpness of transitions, and introduce "artifacts" where there are significant color changes. The higher the compression ratio you save with, the more it reduces the image quality. But the real kicker, as far as I'm concerned, is that it repeats the entire compression calculation every single time you save the file. Create an image and save it as jpg, the whole thing gets manipulated and you lose some of your detail. Make a small change, and save (not "save as", regular plain "save"), and the entire image gets processed again, even the areas that didn't change, stripping out a little more quality overall. Even on the highest quality setting, it still does this, just not as drastically as on lower quality settings. That's why it's called a "lossy" compression method...because you lose a little bit of data every time it's saved.

(There is a "lossless" JPG algorithm, but as far as I know, it's not used anywhere, because it produces the least amount of compression. It's certainly not available in any of the currently publicly available programs.)


Tiff also offers an internal, lossless compression nowadays, that most software can handle just fine, but the safest route is exactly what Foo said. Save it without compression, then zip or stuff it. (Or tar it, I guess, if the recipient can handle that.)

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Thanks, LJ! I'm gonna check out that site and see what I can get.

And thanks for the advice and all Tripp, but my entire point was I didn't want to go ANYWHERE local. In person I'm actually quite shy and private, and I don't want to deal with potential weird looks from people. I won't do anything XXX (I do Playboy, not Hustler), but still.

As far as file types, I'm well versed in what will look good in prints and what won't. I've gone through some trial and error and other shops to where I get really nice looking prints from the place I go to now. That's why I was kind of looking for reviews about some of the services, because I know how using different places can get totally different results.

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I know some artists who will open fan-art to a print on DA so they can order it, and then close it again before they get whacked for making money on copyright stuff, because they like the quality. I haven't ordered one from DA yet myself tho.

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PS: they also do books...

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I think the question was more about boobs.

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My Deviant Art page link-link

CoH/V Fan Videos

Yes. Yes it was.

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Some printers have self-serve computers where you can print your stuff out personally and just pay the ticket when you get to the register.

Several of the Kinko's I used to use before I moved had that option. All the options were menu based, you just made your choices and waited.

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My Deviant Art Page

The Kinko's here sucks...I went there first to get my BF gift art printed up, if I showed Juggy what they did to his work he might go into epileptic shock.

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Yeah... I've had bad results with the big chain places. It can be incredibly hit or miss as to if they happen to have a person working who knows what they're doing. Or if their printers are working.

The last time I used a chain place, they handed me my print and it was horribly streaky. I was like "What the heck is this?!" and the girl said "Oh, our printer is acting up. We have a call in." They KNEW the printer was off, but were still fine with printing sub-standard prints and expecting people to pay for them.

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This is why I send TIFFs or TGAs of my finished pieces at full resolution to the client in a zip file. Printing!

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How big is your average file Foo? I send zipped jpegs anywhere from 1.5 - 3GB, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't Tiffs HUGE?

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...GIGABYTES!?

My TGAs are usually around 20mb. That's around 2500x3000 pixels or 35x47". Zipped (RARed, actually), they end up less than 5mb total.

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Yeah... I've had bad results with the big chain places. It can be incredibly hit or miss as to if they happen to have a person working who knows what they're doing. Or if their printers are working.

The last time I used a chain place, they handed me my print and it was horribly streaky. I was like "What the heck is this?!" and the girl said "Oh, our printer is acting up. We have a call in." They KNEW the printer was off, but were still fine with printing sub-standard prints and expecting people to pay for them.

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That mirrors my experiences with the chains. Have several great prints followed by someone who didn't even know how to rotate an image to print properly (No, I wanted that 11x17 to print 11x17 not 8.5x11 on the top half of an 11x17 page).

On the other hand I found a small printer that when they did have a few streaky pictures, reprinted them again at no cost to me, and gave me duplicates of all the good copies of the run.

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I wouldn't have minded if they had been apologetic, but the girl totally expected me to take that print. I wouldn't have had any problem if they said there would be a delay while the printer was serviced, it was expecting me to take a print like that.

Oh well, that's in the past. I love the print shop I work with now. I just want to keep any risque pieces on the down low ^.^

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...GIGABYTES!?

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LOLOL whoops my bad, I meant MBs... lololol though the one I am working on now is ridiculously high, but it is 3 figures on a huge background... lolol I'm still laughing...

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