Do you like Lightroom’s print layout capabilities, but don’t have a printer to print to, or want to just share your design electronically?
No problem — design your layout in the Print module, and print to a jpeg instead of to a printer. Send the jpeg out for someone else to print, or email it out to your clients or friends. In the Print Job panel in the bottom right, change Print to: Printer to Print to: JPEG File.
Set the file resolution to whatever your printing service requires (or 90-100 for onscreen display), sharpen if you know your printing service won’t. For the best print quality, set the jpeg quality to 100. For onscreen viewing, I find 70 to be sufficient — it produces a much smaller file that can be easily emailed, with no visible quality deterioration. Under color management, choose sRGB, unless your printing service gives you a profile to use.
Once you choose Print to: JPEG file, the Print… button at the bottom of the panel becomes Print to File…
Click on it, and tell Lightroom where to save your JPEG to.
[…] Lightroom Quick Tip of the Week: Printing to Jpegs (laurashoe.com) […]
Hi Laura,
Thanks for this. I have a problem though. The outputted file resulting from this is ignoring my PPI requirement. I’m entering 300 PPI in ‘Print Job’ but the resulting JPEG is 72 DPI every time. You got a solution for that?
Appreciate any help you can give.
Luke
I don’t know why this would be, Luke. Personally I wouldn’t be concerned about it, as long as the file has the correct pixel dimensions (dimension x ppi). For more troubleshooting, try lightroomforums.net.
Thank you very much Laura,
your tips are fabulous!
clare
When i click on print to file it will only let me print one image (wedding_1)Then when i try to print to file on my next image (wedding_2) it will not work unless i rename the file to something completely different?! Help!
Hi Amy,
First, if you are just creating JPEGs of your photos, use the Export dialog instead. Only use the Print module if you are applying more visual effects (like a border or multi-photo layout). Assuming you’re applying a border and outputting one photo per page, select your photos in the filmstrip, then Print to File and type in a name. This name will be the name of the folder that the individual JPEGs will go into, and they will be called name-1, name-2, etc. If you are following these steps and it isn’t working, then I’d recommend posting on lightroomforums.net, which allows you to post screenshots and to engage in a back-and-forth exchange to troubleshoot.