How to get a "crisp" graphical identity plate on prints?

Question

I'm a long time LR user (currently LR 4.2), but just recently started producing a series of limited edition prints that include a graphical identity plate centered below the image.  As LR insists on having to scale the identity plate, the result is that I can never produce a print where the text appears crisp and sharp.  Rather there's always some perceptible softness in the text.
I'm using PhotoShop to produce the graphical identity plate and have produced it in the exact dimensions as it should appear beneath the print.  When I bring it into the LR print module, however, it immediately scales it to 100% of the page size so I'm left with no option but to select a scaling % that most closely represnts the original size.
Is there a solution to this?  I only recently purchased PS CS6 and am thinking I should probably be doing this within that application, but honestly I'm just more comfortable in LR.  For this print, I have the page size set to 20" x 30" and the cell size containing the image at 16" x 24".  I think I know the correct process to duplicate this within Photoshop, but I'd feel better if someone with more expertise than me could verify the procedure if LR isn't up to the task.
Thank you in advance.
Ken Schram

Answer 1

I use two different workflows for this sort of thing that both work fine. One is to Export the image from Lightroom to a upscaled, color profiled and print sharpened image already. So in export I select the correct profile for the paper, use 8-bit tiff (16-bit gives no advantage if you use the correct paper profile in my experience), set the correct size and ppi, and select medium (or different depending on your taste) sharpening for the type of paper I am going to use. Then in Photoshop, I drag this on a blank document of the bigger dimensions as a layer (make sure to have it already in the same color profile) and position it and than drop in my logo in another layer and print this. The other workflow I use is even quicker and I haven't seen any quality disadvantages from this yet. What I do is to set the print panel to output to jpeg and create the layout how I want it, but sans logo. I set the icc profile and the print sharpening and output the jpeg to reasonably high quality (you won't see any difference above about 90) and open this in PS and drop the logo in and print. I have not been able to detect any difference in quality between using jpeg and tiff as the intermediary step at least if I use the correct paper profile but the Lightroom scaler and sharpener is a lot more convenient than optimizing this step yourself in Photoshop which is a lot of work if you do not have something like Photokit sharpener.
When I print these at a commercial printer, I simply output the final result to a flattened jpeg and send those files. Depending on the printer, you can either use their paper profile or simply stay in sRGB or adobeRGB.