cut a long story short.
I had a relative design a wedding invite for me and I’m trying to get it printed.

she sent a high res picture of the painting she had created.

When I went to a local printer to get it printed, it was terrible. He was pretty unhelpful as well

They basically printed the exact photo. without trying to touch it up.

Is it unreasonable to ask them to touch it up and modify??

How do I get around this? any advice.

What is it you are wanting them to do? Printing the exact photo is usually what I want from a printers. 🙂

You can ask them to do whatever you like just as long as you pay for it.
Unless of course you told them in the first place you wanted the pic touching up and got that included in your quote?

Post the image. We often get poor quality artwork sent for us to create graphics from.
Often people think it’s high res when it’s not. File size does not equal high resolution.

Thanks for response guys, the printer was pretty Unhelpful. Was trying to explain that due to it being a photo with the light not perfect there was a contrast between top and bottom, the text had also come out pixilated. However he was more concerned about the bleed and the fact it didn’t fully fit a6.

I would post but it contains a lot of info I don’t want to put on a public forum. 😥

So is there anything I should be asking for or even recommendations for a more helpful printer.

Choices are limited in rural Aberdeenshire

A printer prints what you send. It’s not their job to make it look good.

Photo retouching is a job in itself, and takes a lot longer than the printing bit.

You require the services of a professional graphic designer.

OK I thought the printers would do the touching up. This is getting more complicated than I anticipated. Shows my lack of knowledge.

I work with printers. If they mess about with artwork without being asked then they get into a world of trouble! Most printers will just print the image as sent with zero adjustments as this is what any professional client would require. If you want the image retouching or resizing then you need a designer and repro company.

Some printers do also offer graphics services but not all.

A printer prints what you send. It’s not their job to make it look good.

Unfortunately this ^

I’m a printer, and even more so nowadays we get sent all sorts of rubbish produced in Word or other random software. If we spent time correcting peoples files we’d never produce anything.

Some printers do have the capability for photo re-touching, and correcting files etc., but they will charge.

If I see something completely wrong I’ll point it out to the client before printing, but as CHB says we won’t change anything without being asked.

Your printer sounds like a bit of a knob though. But in his defence bleed and proportions are important.

(BTW – I don’t do wedding stationery! It usually equals a lot of faffing for not much return!).

Thanks again guys.I will try and track down someone that can touch up the picture. It would have been good if the printer would have told us this info.

If the relative wouldnt have taken so much time and effort to make it I would probably scrap. However it does look good so need to stick with it, and I don’t think it needs that much work…just sharpening up.

As others have said, you need someone to so some pre press work for you. Why not post the file with the majority of text blanked out so people can get an idea of how much work there is?

If I were you I’d start by getting a template (probably Adobe Illustrator format) from a printer and a decent photo / scan of the painting and laying it all out properly (ie file set to print resolution and dims) in a drawing or photo editing program. And start from scratch with the text in your new file.

You may want a digital proof before it goes on press if you’re fussy about colour matching. You lose a lot of colour and contrastwhen a full colour photo gets squeezed into CMYK.

Just a thought but how easy would it be to get the original artwork from your relative?

Unfortunately you’re always going to struggle getting a good quality print from a photography of the work, especially if it isn’t taken in a studio or similar.

IMO you’d much be better off getting the painting professionally scanned, if you can’t get the artwork sent to you see if it can be taken to somewhere local to your relative and then have the file sent over to be printed.

Have a look for a giclee printer as they’re the guys who usually reproduce prints for artist and photographer and have all the kit to scan paintings etc.

As a digital printer here is the process.
1.paint pucture
2.scan image in a resolution no less than 300 dpi colour corrected and converted to cmyk at size and as a lossless file . Tiff or eps and no compression.
File is placed into a dtp progrme such as indesign quarke or illustrator and text added.
3. A pdf proof for typos etc is made and approved by you.
4. A high defenition pdf is made which includes 3 mm of bleed all the way round and sent to your printer. If its double sided then its a two page pdf. This is the correct size that you want.
5.tell the printer your quantity and on what paper.
6 collect pay distribute .

Ta pace

Ok I have had a go at uploading I have distorted out the dates etc. sorry

It sounds like I will need to take the original artwork in to be scanned then and the writing can then be added in to the scan is that correct

A blank page is made . The scanned picture is placed onto the page in position . Your text is added where you ask it to be and in what font . Bold italic colours drop shadow etc. its saved and approved in that order.

At a cost.

Exactly as pacef8 says, unless specified, most printers will reproduce the supplied image as is. When I worked in print, doing prepress, I would generally try to improve any illustration as quickly as possible, but if supplied with an illustration that seems to be as compromised as the OP says, then we would ask for the original a/w, or a much better quality photo. A photo that changes colour from top to bottom, no matter the resolution, is going to take a lot of phaffing around with, involving things like layers, graduated fills, etc, to try to balance the colour differential, which may involve an extra hour, maybe two, to get a decent result, which could add an extra £100-150 to the cost.
As the customer, the OP should have been given a colour proof, matched as closely as possible to the final job; it’s at that point that any issues that come to light should be pointed out and, if possible, corrected.

thanks Guys.

will pop to see a scanner with the original tomorrow

I once designed a brochure for a joiner. He sent me a picture of a staircase that had a baby gate on it. It got printed as such. He went batshitmental because I hadn’t edited out the stair gate even though he hadn’t asked me to ‘Shop it out.

At the end of the day you get printed what you give them unless you tell them otherwise.

Why don’t you just email the invites, using the original artwork? Save yourself any more hassle and expense?

(BTW – I don’t do wedding stationery! It usually equals a lot of faffing for not much return!).

Wasn’t just me then 😉