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Creating The “Notre Dame Poster” Layout

After I did that post last week about my shooting the Notre Dame vs. Tulsa game, and I showed that commemorative poster I was making for my buddy Jim who went with me (Jim’s a long time Notre Dame fan), I got a number of comments and emails asking how I did it, so I put together this short video, which starts with just the image, goes into Photoshop for the layout stuff, and then lastly to MPIX.com to turn it into a framed print (I show the final framed image in the video). Hope this helps. :-)

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Scott Kelby Author
Scott is a Photographer, bestselling Author, Host of "The Grid" weekly photography show; Editor of Photoshop User magazine; Lightroom Guy; KelbyOne.com CEO; struggling guitarist. Loves Classic Rock and his arch-enemy is Cilantro. Devoted husband, dad to two super awesome kids, and pro-level babysitter to two crazy doggos.
78 comments

    1. Hi Stephen:
      I always, always, always use .jpg. The save as .tif is one of those things handed down from generation to generation, just like the myth of having to print at 300 ppi. Either way–you can’t go wrong, both are good file formats—-it’s just that the .tif file will be five or ten times larger than the exact same .jpg file. :-)

      -Scott

      1. Scott, the other cool thing about Mpix is, you can upload all of your 5 star photos and they are archived. I lost a photo once and they sent me the file back on a DVD. The only requirement is you have to buy something at least every 6 months (mine are weekly!). It’s my 3rd backup.
        Ken

      4. Scott,
        Being a production artist, I think the .tif thing comes from QuarkXpress. The word back then was use .eps or .tif only. Now that we have Adobe inDesign we can import just about any file type. But, I never use .jpg as the images used for print are cmyk.

  6. Hi Scott,

    great explanation! I actually do it almost the same way when printing images for “big” frames. Got the idea from your post explaining how to do a fake frame for pictures on the web. I usually also add a drop shadow to the image layer (light source at 90 degree), giving it a more three-dimensional look. Makes people believe that there is actually a custom printed mat behind the photo ;)

    Thanks for all the inspiring posts and videos that you put up on you blog!

    Martin

  11. This is terrific; thanks for putting it together for us. Just wondering why you don’t like non-glare glass? Does it cause a color shift, or is it something else? Thanks again…

    1. Ron,
      Non-glare glass will cause a loss of visual detail in your images. There are a few other glass options available, right up to “museum quality” glass which is almost un-noticeable — though almost twice as costly as regular glass.
      Trev J.

      1. Ron:
        Trevor pointed out exactly why I don’t like it. It’s like putting a .5 Gaussian blur over your entire image. Yuck!

        Best,

        -Scott

  15. Great video as always! For the umpteenth million time you’ve shown me a simple trick (centering layers) that’s going to save me time over and over again. Thanks Scott!!!

  19. Scott, you say “TRAH-zen Pro” – in my 20 years as an art director, Ive always said “TRAY-gin Pro” – hmmmmm, so now the great battle of typeface pronunciation.

    I may have to bet you a Memphis music logo tee on whats the right way to pronounce said font.

    1. Hi Chase:
      It probably is “Tray-gin Pro.” My wife says I don’t really look at words when I pronounce them. She says I ‘kinda’ look at them and take a general stab at it, so chances are my pronunciation is wrong. :)

      S.

    1. Not usually, but in this case, I knew I was doing for Jim so I did shoot it with that in mind. It’s a 10mm fisheye shot that’s been automatically corrected in Lightroom’s Lens Correction panel. :)

      -Scott

  24. Quick question – the file is in JPG, assuming sRGB. Do I have to worry about any other color space when going to MPIX? I also found that with my monitor, even after correcting it, I have to brighten the image a bit for it to look like the same luminance as what I see on my monitor when I send to MPix…

    1. Hi Tom:
      MPIX wants the files in sRGB mode, so before I upload them, I go under Photoshop’s Edit menu and choose Convert to Profile. Then I choose sRGB as the Destination space. That’s all ya gotta do (though the brightening a bit is a good idea, for matching the screen brightness). :-)

      -Scott

      1. Scott, been using Mpix for years and always send adobe rgb, maybe they have my number, color is always spot on. I may try sending one srgb and see what happens.

    2. Part of your calibration should be to adjust the luminance of your display. It will be way too bright unless you adjust it. In your calibration software you should be able to modify the luminance target. I have my monitor set at 60 cd/m2, when before calibration it was set to over 120.

    3. Don’t forget to lower the luminance of your monitor when you calibrate it. That way you don’t need to change the brightness of your images. I can’t imagine doing that for any lab and achieve any consistency. I have mine set for 60 cd/m2.

      Also, the image will have different apparent brightness and color depending on the light source used to view it. Since most of my clients are residential and use tungsten light to view their images, I have my monitor calibrated to 5000K, not 6000K. This way the prints don’t turn out too warm for viewing under tungsten light.

    4. There is also an issue with your calibration, and that is the K you calibrate to. If most of your clients are residential, they’ll have tungsten light most likely and you will want to calibrate to 5000K or so. If they are commercial with fluorescent lighting, 6000K is fine, which is what most labs recommend.

      I have mine at 5000K, and the images end up right on, and not too warm as when it was calibrated at 6000K.

  25. Love the video tutorial, Scott. You should do more of these, but you probably aren’t in the office much. Got to use up those restored air miles, I bet!

    I will be using Mpix for a photo shortly, and I can’t wait to see the result.

    Thanks,

    –John

    2. As long as you only transform it once then it would be the same quality. If you start to noodle with it and transform it multiple times then a RAW-linked smart object layer would offer better quality because it’s always transforming the original data.

  30. I thought I had put up a message that I wondered if using the “ND” might be a trademark (or copyright) violation. I now wonder if I was censored? I’m not trying to start trouble, just wondering if maybe we should a look at this as an honest mistake. On the other hand, maybe I’m wrong??? Just wondering … please, tell me if I’m wrong.

  32. Hi Scott. Thanks for the tutorial. I always use a top mat to keep the print away from the glass. Does it damage the print if it is in contact with the glass?

  34. Question on the text and the “pipe” you mentioned holding down the shift key and hitting the backslash key | and it creates the straight line like the one to the left. However, when in photoshop it is creating the | but adds a horizontal line to make the shape of a letter t. I am on a PC using cs4 trajan Pro regular. I works great on your blog but not in my photoshop

    HELP

    1. Hi Lance:
      I can’t explain that one. I just tested it myself with Trajan Pro and it worked just fine. It could be a PC thing (in other words; the Pipe might be a different character on a PC keyboard). If anybody out there knows, can you share it here for Lance?

      -Scott

  35. Loved it,super easy and cool!
    Just one thing…I cannot get the ruler
    On the right side to work,I know it is
    Something so silly I cannot think of as
    Of today….thanks for a great tutorial!

  40. Great tutorial as always. When you submit your photo’s to mpix, do you use their icc profiles? If so, is the file you’re dragging into the poster already converted to their profile?

    Thanks

  41. Thanks once again, Scott. Just a quick comment — the ALT-Right Bracket command did not work for me (CS5 on Windows 7) to increase spacing between letters — ALT-Right Arrow did the trick, though. Great tutorial — I’m making a poster using a photo from the U2 concernt back in August!

  42. Scott,

    This looks great–I am relatively new to photoshop–I have version CS4. After I bring up my image from bridge and open the new file for sizing I lose the image–and I can’t retrieve it. What am I doing wrong?

    FHB

  43. Hey Scott,

    I am a HUGE Notre Dame football fan, and I was really excited and interested to read your blog post about the Tulsa game a few weeks ago (even if I was pretty peeved at how the final game ended up). I was wondering if it would be possible to get a jpeg or tiff of either your poster or just the image itself to hang up at my house with my other ND paraphernalia? Thanks!

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