Helene is Saying Goodbye
"After working in the photo industry in San Diego for over 20 years and Giant Photo Service for 12 years, I have to say good-bye. My husband and I are headed for Maryland. We are ready to explore the eastern US, experience changing seasons and be close to our children and grandchildren."
Read more ....

Scenario:
You want to get the best possible digital enlargements from your camera, and you have wisely asked us to print them for you (of course!)

Here are three ways to make sure we can produce a top quality enlargement for you:

1. Your Digital Camera Settings
A. Make sure your camera has enough mega-pixels to do the job. Anything above 2 MP is acceptable, which is the keyword here. See the May Newsletter for more detailed information.

B. Turn the contrast setting down slightly. We recommend 1/3 to 1/2 stop below normal. Your camera might say "- 0.5" or something similar on the screen after you've changed it. This puts more "data" into the photo for us to pull out later. As in the illustration below, it may look muddy, but before printing, we'll be able to pull out more color and detail from the shadows and highlights.



C. Don't sharpen the image in the camera! It may look better on that tiny screen, but when you blow it up, it will have a grainy or "pixelated" look, much like the high speed films of the recent past. Enough said.

2. Saving Image on Your Computer
Don't change or modify the Image as a JPEG file! If you need to make changes or modifications to an image, use the "Save Copy As" or "Save As" feature in Photoshop or other editor and select TIF or PSD (Photoshop) file format as the working file format. This will leave your original .JPG file intact. Everytime you open a JPEG to change it, you loose resolution. EPS is also a good format to use for changes.

When you're printing digital prints, both steps 1 and 2 boil down to one thing: the more information in the picture, the better your enlargement will be.

3. Getting Us the Image
Send us a CD or memory card with detailed instructions about which file(s) to print. We can't tell you how many times we've had to ask, "Which one is it?".

You can also email the files to us at files@giantphoto.com. And if the total size of the emailed photos is over 5MB, please send them separately.

You can see how each of these things will help us help you have the best enlargements ever!

Keep Clicking!
Sincerely,

Your friends at Giant Photo,
- Alfred, Helene, Sue and Crew