# Path to getting a print from a photo on the mobile app



## alec.dann-verizon (Oct 23, 2020)

I use both Lightroom Classic and the Lightroom app on my phone but my wife uses just the Lightroom app (phone and desktop).

What is the best path for her to get a print made when she wants one.

Obviously she could share the photo with me and have me print it, or she could export the photo and send it to a printing service.  Both involve several steps and hassle.

Is there a more direct way to get a print made from the Lightroom cloud application?


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## Conrad Chavez (Oct 24, 2020)

What kind of printer do you have? For iOS, it can be difficult to print on an older printer. Sometimes you have to use a separate app made by the printer manufacturer (if they made one), open the image, and print. And of course it isn’t common to print from a phone to a printer through a cable, so the first requirement is that the printer at least be wired to a network that has a wifi access point on it, or have wifi access itself. If the printer doesn't support AirPrint, there is software out there that lets you use a Mac as an AirPrint server to a networked printer.

For more recent printers that support AirPrint, it's much easier. The standard iOS Share Sheet has a Print option that discovers AirPrint-compatible printers, so after you find the iOS Share Sheet in the Lightroom app, you can print directly from Lightroom on iOS to a printer, if it supports AirPrint.






I don’t think there’s a way to print from Lightroom desktop, but I’d like to find out I’m wrong about that.


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## alec.dann-verizon (Oct 24, 2020)

Brilliant answer.  I have an Epson P800 which supports Airprint so that solves it for my wife.

I also have a student who doesn't own a printer.  Is there a way for her to send a print to a service bureau if she doesn't want to buy a printer?

Thanks,

Alec


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## Conrad Chavez (Oct 24, 2020)

alec.dann-verizon said:


> I also have a student who doesn't own a printer.  Is there a way for her to send a print to a service bureau if she doesn't want to buy a printer?


All a print service provider needs is an uploaded image in JPEG or TIFF usually, so to work with most of them, you would use the same Share feature, on both iOS and macOS, to export in whatever format and options they need. Then upload to the print service provider using a web browser or app.

To get the above done on iOS, some Share options will save it to the Camera Roll, the Export As option lets you save to any folder through the iOS Files app. Use whichever location is a better match for the way the print service provider’s upload works. On the iOS App Store, it looks like Target, Walmart, CVS, and Shutterfly have an iOS app for ordering prints and uploading images.

In Lightroom for macOS, the bottom of the Share menu has a WHCC option in the Connections section. WHCC stands for White House Custom Color, a very well-regarded photo printing service. If they fit the budget, it means you can connect directly to WHCC from Lightroom with no exporting, I think (haven't tried it, to be honest I use Lightroom Classic most of the time, printing to my Epson).


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## alec.dann-verizon (Oct 24, 2020)

Great (and thorough) answer.  Many thanks!


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## alec.dann-verizon (Oct 28, 2020)

Conrad, that was a nice gif you put together to show the steps.  Did you do that in Photoshop?  Whatever the tool, I appreciate the extra effort.


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## Conrad Chavez (Oct 28, 2020)

alec.dann-verizon said:


> Conrad, that was a nice gif you put together to show the steps.  Did you do that in Photoshop?  Whatever the tool, I appreciate the extra effort.


Thanks, glad you liked it. There are questions like this one where writing out the steps for the answer would be long and confusing to follow, so it's more reader-friendly to demonstrate it. I like to embed something small that doesn't have to be uploaded to YouTube first. Screen capture videos work well but they result in extremely large animated GIF files, and I don't want to slow down the forum. So over time I've been working out how to make minimal how-to animations in as little time as possible.

I did do a screen capture of my iPhone by plugging it into my Mac and recording it with QuickTime Player. But instead of using the whole video, I copied just 16 still frames out of it, and strung them together as a Frame Animation in the Timeline panel of (you guessed it) Photoshop. Multiple images can be loaded into one Photoshop document using File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack. I keep some boilerplate callout graphics in my Creative Cloud Libraries, so I can drag those in as needed.

In Export >  Save for Web (Legacy) I set it up as a looping animated GIF, adjusting optimization settings to balance small file size with retaining quality. The one above is under 500KB, largely because it’s just 16 frames. Now I've got the whole process down so that I can make one quickly.


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## alec.dann-verizon (Oct 28, 2020)

As Steve Martin would say, "Vera niiice!  Thanks!


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## alec.dann-verizon (Dec 4, 2020)

Conrad Chavez said:


> In Lightroom for macOS, the bottom of the Share menu has a WHCC option in the Connections section. WHCC stands for White House Custom Color, a very well-regarded photo printing service. If they fit the budget, it means you can connect directly to WHCC from Lightroom with no exporting...


Leaving some info here for those that follow this thread.

I explored the WHCC idea and it appears they've done a nice integration with Lightroom (Cloud version).  WHCC has done a good job of documenting here: Ordering in Lightroom.

I haven't tried it yet, but took a while to find it so thought I would leave a link trail here.

The only catch is that it seems to only be available in the desktop version, not in the iPhone or iPad apps.


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## gormabaljiep59 (Jul 13, 2021)

Are you sure you need that? Pretty much sure that the quality won't be very high!


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## alec.dann-verizon (Jul 13, 2021)

gormabaljiep59 said:


> Are you sure you need that? Pretty much sure that the quality won't be very high!


I would expect the results would be as good as any other color lab but the only way to know would be to have a print made and then evaluate it.


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## haleszarz (Sep 16, 2021)

I also wanted to print a photo from my phone once. It's quite hard to do it tho. Not a lot of printers can be connected to the phone. I had a photo i wanted to edit once with the help of this 7 photo background apps for iPhone, but sadly the app didn't have the option to print from the mobile phone. I had to save the photo and move it on my computer. As I read the others' suggestions, I got an idea of how I could do it so I will also try them.


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