For any business logo it is extremely important that you have it in vector format, so what does this mean and why is it important?

Example

Here is a crude demo of what we mean – we can provide SVG format as well so images can even be resized in a browser window without losing quality

Standard Images

Most digital images you would have experienced will more than likely be in JPEG, PNG or TIFF format, basically how these work is to map out the position of every single pixel on the image and what colour it represents, therefore the image looks the same as when it comes off the camera, the file size can be quite large if your camera produces images with a lot of pixels (high mega-pixel), therefore JPEGS/PNG use compression to successfully reduce the size of the image – the downside of this is that some pixels are lost or changed.

So if a JPEG is a map of all the pixels and it looks good on your screen, why use anything else? Well, have you ever tried to enlarge a photo beyond what it came off the camera? You will recall it went nasty and grainy – there are techniques to try and produce better enlargements but at the end of the day you are effectively ‘inventing’ these pixels as they never existed on the original image

Vectors

A vector is basically like a mathematical formula telling the computer how to draw the image – therefore you can resize it to any size you like and it will not lose any quality at all. As you can imagine this would be a vast file and take a lot of computing power for a photo to be turned into a vector formula, however it is a great way to produce logos and simple images as it will enable you to print them at any size and have them look perfect, curves look smooth even when zoomed in at 10000%

We offer an ‘image to vector’ conversion service where we take your logo/image and convert it into a nice vector version which you can use in advertising, print, websites and more. If you are running a business and do not have a vector version of your logo, you should really get in touch!

If you are printing your photography it is vital to ensure that the image is optimised and calibrated, ideally to the exact printer that you or your printer will be using. There are a number of steps we recommend prior to having any image printed:

• Correct colours and tone – even the best cameras can sometimes get the colours wrong, perhaps you were under artificial light or the weather was cloudy/sunny. The first step is to ensure the colours are how they should be, take a look at the black colouring and white colouring, do they look black/white or are they miscoloured? If these are out then chances are the rest of your image is not correct and could look much better
• Lens Correction - take a look at straight lines in your image, are they curved? Does the centre of your image seem to balloon out slightly? You will be amazed at the result when we correct an image for your lens, we have a huge database of different lenses and so can get your image just perfect
• Reduce noise – cameras can struggle if lighting is not perfect, this amongst other reasons can create ‘noise’ on the image, a kind of grainy / dotted overlay reducing the quality. Tricky to fix unless you have the right software and skills without losing quality, best to use a retoucher like us to do this for you.
• Sharpen the image – ensure that edges are sharp and do not blur into the next object, try zooming into an area of the image that requires sharpness such as the eyes / hair
• DPI / dots per inch – most camera images are exported onto your computer at 72dpi, whereas most printers print optimally at around 300dpi. Best to ask your printer which dpi they require and we can do the necessary resizing without losing pixel quality, even when enlarging (to a degree)
• File format – JPEG/TIFF/PNG/RAW – struggling with which to give to your printer? Each has it’s own properties, JPEGs and PNGs are have smaller file sizes from RAW/TIFF because they have been compressed and use lossy compression techniques.
• Colour mode – RGB / CMYK? Ask your printer which they prefer, we are betting on CMYK as RGB is really not for print
• ICC colour profile – OK so now we can get really clever, if you ask your printer for their machine’s ICC colour profile we can convert your image colours to match it exactly, therefore the colours you see on your screen will be the same as on the final print

There are our tips on getting that perfect print, and each make a huge difference to the final outputted image. We provide retouching and calibration services for people from art students to media companies and charge around £7.50-£10 for our calibration package which includes everything needed to get that perfect print

This month we are offering a special deal on any grunge effect photo – just £10 per image