Preparing photos for printing... any tips?

[CR_OPSO]

I'm ordering 5x7's and 8x10's from mpix.com and was wondering if anyone had any advice on what to do with my files to get the best prints. I normally don't worry about it that much, but this is the first time I'm getting paid for the pictures (I want them to be perfect). I've read that it's best to convert to TIFF instead of jpeg, but that's about it. And I do plan to crop them to the right dimensions before uploading.

Most of the photos I take end up resized for the web and need a good bit of sharpening. Do I need to sharpen photos for printing, too?

If it helps to know... these are portraits. I'm working on a video for a client and she asked if I'd do some still shots, too. And all pictures were taken in RAW with a Rebel XT.

Thanks,
Chad

 

[fixitinpost]

It's been my experience that printing requires about twice as much sharpening as screen display. It'll look pretty awful on-screen, but prints pretty nicely.

Another thing to do it see if you can get color profiles for the printers they use, and proof your images using those profiles to ensure that you get accurate colors.


And definitely use TIFF instead of JPG. A far superior file format.

That's about all I know to do for printing. I'm sure some of the more experienced around here will have some better tips.