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Photography Question 

Brian McDonald
 

How to save pictures and print in Photoshop


I recently purchased a Sony DSC-F717 and have been taking pictures using the highest quality setting(not the 3:2 mode). When I open the picture in Photoshop, it tells me the image size is something like 35"x26". When I try to print this image on a 4x6 piece of paper, it does not come out right. Do I need to re-size the image to a 4x6 and then print? I want to be able to print a 4x6 using the whole image without having to crop the picture down to a 4x6.

Also, a friend of mine says that once he saves the original image onto his computer, he immediately resizes it to a 5x7 and changes the resolution to 300 pixels per inch and then saves it in TIFF format. He says that doing this enables him to have perfect 5x7's and 4x6's. Also, the 300 pixels per inch is plenty for an 8x10? Except for the TIFF part(which I totally agree with), does anyone disagree or agree with how he is saving it? Thanks very much and sorry for the long post.


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July 06, 2004

 

Peter Mantione
  Hi Brian. here is a link that explains Aspect Ratios. Hope it helps

http://graphicssoft.about.com/library/glossary/bldefaspectratio.htm

Peter Mantione


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July 06, 2004

 

Wing Wong
  Hi Brian,

In photoshop, when you first load an image, PS will assume the image is 72dpix72dpi. So whatever your image's width and height values are divided by the dpi is the resulting inches in width and height.

Your friend that suggests resizing your image to 300dpi is correct in that it helps to print a perfect 5x7, etc. However, when you resize, you need to make sure that "resample" is not checked. If it is, you will lost image quality when you do this.

Wing


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July 06, 2004

 

Brian McDonald
  Thanks Peter and Wing for some great information. Wing, is the 300dpi enough to print perfect 8x10's or higher? Thanks.

Brian


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July 06, 2004

 

Peter Mantione
  Brian, in answer to your question weather 300 DPI is enough to print 8x10. I all depends on the type of printer that you are using. If you are using a regular ink Jet printer, then it will print an 8x10 in any Resoultion Setting (Example 72dpi or 300 dpi, both settings will give you an 8x10 size print. However if you are using a Dye (sublimation printer (Example Kodak 8500), Thermal Transfer Printer( Example Fuji Pictography 4000) or other process then the printer may require a 300 Dpi Resoultion setting. In this case the printer requires that the image resoultion bet set to 300dpi....If I were to print an 8x10 image set on 72 dpi on a Dye sub printer I would get a smaller than 8x10 print size.

Hope this helps a bit...

Peter Mantione


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July 07, 2004

 

Wing Wong
  If you are talking about getting an acceptable printout, then it depends on the printer. You can print out 8x10 on any printer, given enough resampling. But to get good output, you need to have the right dpi setting, possibly before resampling.

With most good inkjet printers that list their dpi as 1200+ like the Canon and Epson photo printers, you will need about 225-300 dpi for your image to print the best possible and minimize the artifacting that often results from using JPEG and the dithering algorithms.

So a 5MP digital camera can print out a good 8"x10" with some resampling. A 6MP will need almost no resampling to print 8"x10" and 8MP or higher can print bigger than 8x10 at 300dpi.

Dye sublimation printers and other photo process printers actually require the stated DPI setting. Ie, most are 300-600 dpi output devices and it is best to have the DPI of the image match the DPI of the photo print device. A non match isn't the end of the world, but due to printer driver resampling between photoshop and printer, you can get artifacts due to poor scaling down or scaling up algorithms.

If you print 72dpi images on a printer, you can get 8x10, but the image will be useless.

Photoshop tries to print the image at the state dpi. Ie, if at 300 dpi, your image is only 5"x7", then it will print 5"x7". If you change the dpi to 225 and are able to get 8"x10"(numbers off top of head), then photoshop will print an 8"x10" image with a slight lowering of quality.

I've gotten an 8x10 print from a 2.1MP (1600x1200px) image after resampling up to 300dpi. However, the image is very soft and requires alot of sharpening before printing. It will also magnify artifacts from JPEG compression or noise.

Btw, getting a dpi higher than the device's ability will not gain you anything and may even lower your final image's output quality because the software must now use the printer's resizing/resampling, which may be lower quality than the one used by Photoshop.

Good rule of thumb:

To print the best quality possible from an inkjet printer at home, you are looking at 225-300 dpi for most Epson/Canon photo printers which claims a 1200x1200 or higher dot resolution.

If your image at 8"x10" is less than the required dpi... like you are at 150 or 200, then you can check the resample box to "rez" up your image. This fills in pixels, but you will see a lowering of quality and softening of the image overall.

Wing


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July 07, 2004

 

Brian McDonald
  Thanks for help all. So, If I want to print a 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10, should I change the image size in Photoshop, or leave the image alone and just tell the printer what size to print it at?

Brian


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July 08, 2004

 

Wing Wong
  Hi Brian,

Assuming that when you use photoshop, you are telling it to print one of it's precanned layouts, then I would say, leave the image as-is and choose the size you wish to print at.

If that doesn't work, then you might want to try the following:

In photoshop with your image file opened :

From the menu bar, select [Image]-> [Resize]-> [Image Size].

- Make sure the [Resample Image] is unchecked.

- Have the [Width] and [Height] values be displayed in [Inches] from the 2 pulldown options.

- Change your Height and Width to the desired size you wish your image to be at: 8x10 or 5x7, whatever. Note that your dimensions may not match exactly 8x10... you might get 8x10.6 or something... that's fine for now.

You will notice that the image's dpi changes accordingly. It lowers with larger dimensions and increases with smaller image dimensions.

- Now, recheck the [resample image] box and change the [resolution] to 300 or whichever value matches your printer. (Remember: Epson and Canon inkjet printers claiming 1200+ dpi are really 225-300 dpi output devices for the purpose of this configuration option.)

Once you enter the new dpi value, you may notice that the Pixel Dimensions have changed to accomodate your request.

So, you should now have 8"x10" image size at 300dpi, giving you something like 2400x3000pixels... or something close to that.

Now, click on [OK]. This will resample your image to the desired size/dpi.

When you print your image now, it should print out as 8x10 at 300dpi.

Note: Do not uncheck the chain link to get your image to be 8x10" exactly. Doing this will distort your image.

That should allow you to print out your image.

Wing


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July 08, 2004

 
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