Yay! You have your photos--now what?
There are several options for how to download and order prints. This guide should help you navigate the next steps.
Should you have questions, just bop me an email: steph@sparrowandbeanstudio.com
This guide will help you to:
- Create a Favorites list
- Identify how to download your Favorites vs. the entire gallery
- Understand the difference in 'Download Size'
- Identify print shops
- A few tips
Create A favorites List
When scrolling through your gallery, hovering over an image will show you icons in the lower right corner. Click the heart to Favorite an image.
You will be prompted to enter your email. This is simply to associate your choices with your email which is where the download links will be sent once you're ready for that step.
Photos that are associated with the Favorites list will have a dark circle with a heart icon in the upper left corner of the photo.
At the top of each gallery section, you will now see the heart icon with a green dot next to it. You can click that heart at any time to review the photos that you have added to Favorites.
Once you've clicked the heart icon at the top of your gallery page, you'll be taken to a page that allows you to view your 'My Favorites' list. You can also create other lists on this page. Additional lists could be ones you've favorited to give as gifts or plan to share with certain people. The benefit of these lists is that you can download each list separately, which may help you keep track of certain files when ordering prints. The back arrow in the upper left will bring you back to the full gallery.
When you are back to the full gallery you'll be able to decide which of your lists you want the photo to reside within. You can associate the same photo with multiple lists, but you'll need to click the heart icon multiple times.
To edit the selections in your list, click on the list that you want to review. You can remove photos from this list by clicking the heart icon in the lower right corner, which gives you a dropdown menu that allows you to remove the photo from the list.
Download your favorites list
Navigate to your Favorites list by clicking the heart at the top of the gallery page.
Select the list that you wish to download.
Once inside the list that you wish to download, navigate to the download icon (the downward arrow) in the upper right corner of the list's gallery.
download your entire gallery
When downloading the entire gallery, not just your favorited photos, choose the download icon at the top of the gallery page.
You will be prompted to select which of the subgalleries you would like to download. You can select all or individually choose which are of interest.
Understanding 'Download size'
During download, you will be prompted to select a 'Download Size'. 'High Resolution' is the size you will want to make prints from. A printer needs a lot of information to render your photos, these files contain a lot of information and are thus much larger. 'Web Size' creates low resolution versions of your photos. This file size is designed to load quickly on a webpage and is suitable for web/social media but is far too small to use for prints.
print lab recommendations
It is worth noting that the national labs are often competitive on price and it's worth shopping around to see which might be running a promo.
White House custom color (whcc)
This print lab is out of the Twin Cities--it's a large national lab that does excellent work. Lots of options for products and surfaces etc.
Artifact uprising
If you love simple design and want the win of fewer options, then this is the lab for you. I love so many of their products and have gifted many of their items over the years (I have suggestions in the next section).
Barry Phipps Shop
Barry is a local Iowa City artist/musician who runs his own print shop. I can't recommend Barry highly enough. I've used his shop a few times to make prints of my fine art photos for various gallery shows and he's extremely accommodating and knows his stuff.
tips and recs
- Most paper surfaces fall into either a matte or luster category. Matte is lovely, but the surface can be fragile so you want to handle these prints carefully. The variety of luster papers is immense--ranging from a pebbled surface to a smooth glossy surface. Should it be available, I prefer pretty much any paper that says it has a baryta surface. The one thing to note about luster papers is that a shinier surface will be more reflective, especially if it's a darker image.
- I intentionally leave room in most of my formal images to allow for various print sizes. The aspect ratio that you see in your files is a 2x3, meaning a 4x6 print will maintain the same aspect ratio as your file. A 5x7 is similar but will trim a tiny bit off the long edge of your image. An 8x10 ratio is rather square compared to other standard aspect ratios and will trim more of the long edge of your image.
- If you find that you're trimming more than 30% of the photo when making a crop for printing, you'll likely not want to print that particular file larger than 8x10. If you find you need a particular file significantly cropped for a print, you can always check with me to make certain the new crop has sufficient information for the print size that you're after. When in doubt, just reach out and I'll help you out!
- When considering framing options, I am a big fan of photos that are printed all the way to the edge of the frame. It's a very contemporary look and one that I use in my fine art practice.
- I LOVE some of the interchangable print display options from Artifact Uprising. They're a brilliant way of being able to display photos that you can rotate for various reasons. I have several around the house and I like to change them out before company arrives so guests can see personal photos that include them--a small way of sharing memories together. I will also change out photos for family events such as birthdays or holidays. These flexibility of these systems are what I love most. I particularly love the Brass Easel (though it only displays vertical prints), the Brass & Wood Display Box (I have it in the 5x7 size) and the Photo Block. When I want to update my selection of photos I simply order a new pack of 5x7 Everyday Prints.