Spending all day printing is no fun

That's basically what I did today. Spend all day making graphics and sending them out, only to have the not-so-smart printing refuse them for stupid reasons. Such as telling me there is too much data on the disc to properly print and then telling me my image sizes are too large.

Okay, first off, I'm sending PHOTOGRAPHS that need to be at least 24INCHES WIDE and printed at a high enough resolution to look good. As such, I had to downgrade them already to jpgs, and apparently 20 MB for a high resolution, large print jpg is too large. What do they do when professional photograhers come in needing to print a 5 ft tall wedding photograph that is 1200dpi?

Second, each photo was no larger 20 mb and as such I put all of them on a CD. A CD which holds 700mb. My files, in total, took up less than a 1/4 of the entire CD. And that's "too much data"?

Okay fine, I'll put each image on a separate CD, personally I think burning 20 mbs onto one CD is kind of a waste but hey, what do I know? I'm not a professional printmaking company.


I was recently told to lower my image sizes even more, to make them about 6mbs or lower. Frankly, I refuse to do this as I don't want my name to be associated with a crappy print because someone doesn't know what they're doing or their equipment is far too old. I did lower my images, and some are about 8 mbs. One even has to be 150dpi, which I have no doubt will not look good when printed full-size. If they have a problem with this, well, too bad. I suggest going to a different printer who knows how to properly print large digital images.


Bitterness about a lot of wasted time aside, the installation for our next show is almost all done. Here's the evite (which shall fall under Spectacular Spectral Saturday because I did it and because I'm too far behind with that >.<)



It's going to be a pretty fun show. All the pieces look great, and I wish I had more than a week to help with this, as there is a lot to do before this Sunday's opening and not enough time for it all.

Oh well, at least after this I can begin working on preparing for all future planned exhibits and probably what I'll be working on during the summer. I love VisArts, I really do, and I try to do my best for any and all graphic work they need. However, I am very annoyed at this printer issue and can only hope my prints don't turn out horrendous. If they do though, I won't be surprised in the least.