Turnaround Times

The Icon strives to produce quality work in the shortest possible time. If an order is placed before 11:30am on a weekday, then the order day will count as the first turnaround day.  All jobs received after this cut-off time are treated as if they were ordered on the following day. Weekend days will not count as turnaround days for digital jobs. Some examples:

• A job with two-day turn-around, received at the lab before 11:30am on Monday would be ready between 4:00pm and 8:00pm on Tuesday.
• A job with three-day turn-around, received at the lab after 6:00pm on Friday would be ready between 4:00pm and 8:00pm on Wednesday.

Recommended Scan Sizes for Digital Printing

This chart provides the file sizes for prints at 300 dpi, 200 dpi and 150 dpi. You can use these sizes to determine appropriate scan sizes for printing. Files of 300 ppi are recommended for standard sized prints while large prints can be made from 150 ppi files in order to save money and disk space.

Sizes in YELLOW are recommended.

Pixel Dimensions

This chart provides the files size for prints using pixel dimensions.

Megapixels

Megapixels = total number of pixels in millions. Thus, 12 megapixels = 12 million pixels

The following chart shows common digital camera file in megapixels, approximate pixel dimensions, file size in megabytes and safe print sizes.

These figures are approximate! Digital camera files at 16 megapixels and larger can often tolerate much larger print sizes through interpolation past 400% enlargement. This depends on the image content and on Photoshop techniques such as expert sharpening. The print sizes above are achievable without special effort, however, final decisions about acceptable output quality rests with the client – different people have different requirements.

Direct to Print – the Icon Way

The Icon is pleased to offer special pricing for “ready-to-print” files. This service is known as “Direct to Print”. We take your digital file and send it  “directly” to the printer with no further intervention. This allows us to cut the cost to our clients and still deliver very high quality photographic prints. To utilize this service your print job must adhere to the following guidelines:

1. You must set up the files at the desired printing size at 300 ppi, including any borders (borders count towards the final print size and are included in the pricing)
2. Files must be saved as flat tiffs or jpegs with no alpha channels or masks
3. All color adjustments must be done in advance and files must have an embedded profile. (any icc or icm profile)
4. You should maintain good monitor calibration to have the best results.
5. Only standard matte, glossy or luster paper can be offered at the “Direct to Print” price. All other media has an additional 50% charge.
6. Prints are “rough trimmed” and are NOT trimmed to crop or bleed. Clean trimming is available for an additional charge.

Direct to Print service does NOT include:

• Testing
• Color correction
• Sizing
• Adding Borders
• Revisions
• Spotting or Retouching
• Free Reprints (unless there is a printing defect)

Image files that do not fit these parameters or require our intervention in any way (resizing, clean trimming, etc…) cannot be handled as a “Direct to Print” and must be printed using one of our other custom printing services. If you have any questions please fell free to contact the Icon and ask for technical guidance.
Remember that for the very best quality printing we offer a wide range of custom printing and digital services including: retouching, scanning, Fine Art Giclee printing, Lightjet printing, custom Type C and traditional B+W printing.
Direct-to-Print checklist:

• Setup file to print size at 300 ppi – include desired borders in the image.
• Flatten file, remove alpha channels, masks and paths – save as Tiff or Jpeg.
• Make sure you have a profile embedded in the file.
• Decide on matte, lustre or glossy surface – let us know.

Before committing to a large direct-to-print order we recommend that you print some test files. This will help you to become familiar with the process and judge the quality of your monitor calibration.

What is the difference between a TIFF and a JPEG?

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a flexible image format that normally saves 16-bit per color (red, green and blue for a total of 48-bits) or 8-bit per color (red, green and blue for a total of 24-bits) and uses a filename extension of TIFF or TIF. TIFF is generally lossless (all image information is retained) even when saved in the TIFF format using LZW or Packbits compression to reduce file size. TIFF is widely accepted as a photograph file standard in the printing industry. TIFF is capable of handling device-specific color spaces, such as a CMYK color space defined by a specific combination of printing press and inks.

JPEG images (Joint Photographic Experts Group, the name of the committee that created the standard) is a compressed image format that sacrifice some image quality in order to achieve smaller file sizes with the amount of image quality loss directly related to the reduction in file size. JPEG images that are highly compressed look blocky and fuzzy. The amount of JPEG compression is typically measured by a quality number (0-12) in Photoshop which is proportional to the file size. For example, a quality level 12 file should look nearly identical to the uncompressed image, but has the least reduction in file size. A quality level of 2 will reduce the file size significantly, but the quality of the image will be noticeably degraded. Also, JPEG images cannot include layers. The advantage of a JPEG is that due to its smaller size, it can be sent and received more easily (e.g., via email) and it requires less space for storage. A high-quality JPEG can produce excellent prints.

Data Storage Information

The Icon maintains multiple backups of all data in our care. While we are working on your job, and for 14 days after the job is completed, we keep all data on a RAID storage system to minimize potential data loss due to hardware failure. Each night all data is backed up to a secondary location where every copy of every version of every file is stored for 14 days. After 14 days the files are erased from our servers permanently.
If you require long-term storage of your data, we offer protected data-space on the IconBox for indefinite periods of time.

Limitation of Liability

While we make every effort to protect your media (hard drives, CD’s, DVD’s, memory cards, etc.), all media are subject to failures and data loss at any time. As such, drives, media, art and other items are accepted by The Icon without any liability, guarantee or warranty of any kind to either the media itself or the data contained thereon. Please be sure to keep a backup copy of your data before sending it to The Icon. We pride ourselves on our ability to handle negatives, transparencies and other materials with utmost care. In the event of unforeseeable damage or loss within our lab, reimbursement amounts are limited to the actual price of the materials provided, e.g., the price of film and the price of services rendered. Submitting your film to us constitutes your agreement that any damage or loss caused by The Icon, even through the negligence or fault of our company, will entitle you to replacement with a like amount of unexposed film and processing services. Except for such replacement, the acceptance of the film is without other warranty or liability, expressed or implied and recovery for incidental or consequential damages is excluded. By submitting your film to us, you declare the value of your film to be no more than its replacement cost as stated above. In the event of loss by the U.S. Postal Service, Fedex or other carrier, we will hold no liability (hard drives, flash cards, cds/dvds included).

Copyright

By bringing negatives, transparencies, flat art, or digital files to us, all customers warrant that they have the right to reproduce and/or modify the
materials in question. We hold no liability of a customer’s failure to secure appropriate usage rights or for copyright infringement.

Unclaimed Film / Files / Prints

All unclaimed materials will be destroyed after six months.

Matching Colors

Often you will have an existing print or contact sheet that should be used as a reference when we make scans. When color matching to contact sheets or machine prints we will have good success matching your sample with all our services (except frontier). If your sample has been custom printed (including dodging and burning), was printed from a manipulated file, or printed on an inkjet printer it will only be possible to get a match using our premiere service. If you order a standard or custom scan we will make every effort to match the general color and exposure of your sample, but will not replicate dodging/burning, individual colors, or other localized changes to your image.

In some cases, digital files have been heavily manipulated, or printed on an inkjet printer that has unusual color characteristics. In these cases it may require additional computer time to achieve a match to your sample. We will be sure to discuss the potential difficulties of custom matching your non-photographic samples before taking you order.

It is very important to remember that unless you have a professionally calibrated and color managed workflow, the results from your inkjet printer will not look similar to the results of printing the exact same file on our photographic digital printers.