K..What a day!! Made a collage of a little boy fighting leukemia. It will be presented to his mother tomorrow at the fund raiser to help the family with medical expenses. This is a surprise gift to her.

Story...went to pick the print up to today. I had already sent the file to them. When I got there the print which was 16x20 was terriable, and I mean terriable. Very very dark , one picture which was a black and white you could not even see. :bawling:

The kid who did the order said he could do nothing to help improve on the picture. He was rude and not helpful. He also informed me that it was of poor quality because I didn't scan the originals and save in PDF Format and that was needed in order to get a good print. He would do nothing to assist me at all. Two days ago when I called to get prices and information, I was told it was ok to have the files in jpg, and would get a good print from jpg files. I know people send some companies their large files in jpg format and have great results. I left the store crying..because I thought all my hours of hard work went up in smoke!!

On my way to that printing location I happened to notice another small company on the drive. I was led to stop by there and see if they could help me out! They did!!! :bow: :bow: I gave them the CD with the jpg files on it. There was not enough time to have the collage printed there in the large format, so decided to do a 11x17 and then have it matted and framed into a 16x20. It came out beautifully, you could not imagine the high quality of photo print I got there!! The whole Collage is now printed ..a bit smaller but no matter...it has been matted and framed and it is beautiful.

What makes me mad is the really bad customer service and that he said he could not get a decent print from my CD, even if we reduced the print size. The manager said it could be done , and was no longer available to assist, i had no choice but to deal with the rude kid who was suppose to be helping me. He told me to pay no mind to what the others said because the files were not PDF it just would not work!! I know people send jpg all the time to be printed both locally and online. They get good results. Was I wrong thinking this so?? Was he right about needing the original and scanning to a PDF file for a decent print?

I would like to hear back from someone on this forum with the TRUTH on sending files to print! Can someone give me suggestions on doing this in the future?? It would be so helpful for future printings. Thanks for listening Neb

I send out to print, and I have NEVER used PDF format. What you have been told is utter rubbish. Yes you can use pdf as your format, but jpeg format is perfectly OK for printing. Main thing when saving as jpeg is keep the compression low, and the file size large.

I have had offset printers require pdf from me for brochures (Not sure why exactly - presumably to ensure fonts etc are embedded), but I can't see any reason why jpg wouldn't be suitable for photo printing. What kind of printer outfit was this?

Just to confirm and reinforce what Chris told you. There is absolutely no problem with JPG files.

The kid who served you is not only ignorant in the way he served you, but also in the information he gave you.

I usually have a copy of the files I want printing saved to disc in both TIFF and JPG formats. and I've never had any problems getting them printed.

I think a well worded letter to the parent company informing them of your experience, and your intention to spread word of their incompetence and lack of customer service, might well bring the reprimand the young assistant so richly deserves.

Hi Neb.

Are you sure he said PDF and not maybe PSD?

If He did say PDF then he is Wrong.

In any case the other company has printed this out correctly which proves that your picture is not too dark. (Printing it bigger would not make it darker)

You need to take both pictures to the shop and demand your money back.

You could also send the manager an email with a link to this thread.

Ken.

From what I have learned and understand PDF is becoming the industry standard for pre press printing especially for graphic files that contain fonts. Most places however should be able to print a jpg, or a tiff file for that matter. I believe the PDF is a better format because then they can convert the file to their color system with ease as a lot of prepress places use CMYk as their profiling system.

Sorry you had such a bad experience. The customer service should be able to explain what they need exactly and why.

Ciao Vicki

Well I have just spoken to my print shop, who deal in nothing but photo and canvas printing, and they say they have NEVER been asked to print from a PDF file. In fact 85% of their business is prints from jpeg/tiff images. They are unaware of any difference between UK and US standards/practices that would require a PDF as a must.
Looking at it from a practical side, if printers can't print jpeg files, who is going to print the 100,000,000's of digital photographs taken with digital cameras?

Bit of a bad business move if they only take PDF files :bawling:

Thank You everyone. I knew I was right. He just did not want to do the job, and made that fact known through his attitude.!

Ken, no it was PDF as I was going to try and convert the files into that format but just did not have time and the day before I had been told by another clerk via a phone conversation JPG would be just fine. So kept them that way. I am so glad I took to heart my intuition to take the CD with , or would not have been able to get this special task completed. Funny how things work out in the end!!

I was going to call around today and see what other companies say like you chris, but decided really no need as I am going to use the company that was able to get the task done. They can do everything the other company could and with much much better customer service!! I do plan to let the corporate office know with a letter what my experience was with this young man.

Again , thanks for the confirmation that this older lady :wink: ...was not as stupid as this young man thought I was. I think they need to make a granny smile !! Neb

Well I have just spoken to my print shop, who deal in nothing but photo and canvas printing, and they say they have NEVER been asked to print from a PDF file. In fact 85% of their business is prints from jpeg/tiff images. They are unaware of any difference between UK and US standards/practices that would require a PDF as a must.
Looking at it from a practical side, if printers can't print jpeg files, who is going to print the 100,000,000's of digital photographs taken with digital cameras?

Bit of a bad business move if they only take PDF files :bawling:
Chris, where do you get your prints done? Are they local? (in Bradford here) been shopping around trying to get a good price on canvas printing.

Photo prints are in Ossett (local), but they ship out for canvas prints. I'm off up to see them again on Friday. I will ask them for some details on the canvas prints, and where they send them to. I link it's a place in Leeds they use, but I'm not 100%. Will post the info when I get it, + the prices they charge ;)

I had a canvas print framed here.......

Kingswear Gallery
25 kingswear parade
leeds
ls15 8lj
tel: 0113 2642225 ......

....and I know they will also print to canvas.

Ian

For what it is worth ( and being from the uk) Name and Shame
also i have had photo's printed from jpegs no trouble ( used klick )

But there is a difference in having your photo's printed and using a commercial printer, My husband is a lithographic printer and i work there occasionaly on the finishing side, and they do use pdf files, the reason being i think is that "what you see is what you get" ( sorry been sat here for 10 mins trying to find the right words but have given up )

Palms

PDFs when done right are pretty portable between platforms, but I just received a PDF done on a PC with PageMaker and when I tried to open it in either InDesign or PhotoShop CS on a Mac I got the "Font Missing" warning. This file is for a magazine quality book to be printed at 2400 DPI. The guy who created it did not include the fonts in the PDF.

Where fonts are involved, you must make sure you select a PDF output format that will include the fonts (usually PRESS qulaity-not necessarily "Print" quality).