stevannie

hi guys
for my second question: i have been trying to print some of my photos on my epson R200 but getting some dissapointing results. i have been on a photography site, and they say 'use an Unsharp mask' on pre-printing photos, and save at 300ppi, How doi know what ppi i have on any of my photos, can anyone help.
steve

Welles

Hi Steve,

You will have to look at the Image > Image Size... dialog.

Typically, images are saved at 72 dpi for screen and 300 dpi for print.

stevannie

hi welles
thank you for the brilliant reply, but why do they say on the photo site 'make sure resampling is unticked' and can i automate it so that when i type 300ppi in, it will auto size to A4 or do i have to type in the cm everytime.
steve

Welles

Hi Steve,

So you want to print at A4. Thats...

Millimetres Inches

Width Length Width Length
A4 210.0 297.0 8.26 11.69
Letter 215.9 279.4 8.50 1 1.00

Now do you want borderless printing?

What is the image size you are starting from (in pixels) and when you first open up the Image Size dialog what is the default resolution?

Give me those and I can give you a specific answer.

stevannie

hi welles
yes i usually print borderless, the full monty.
ok, so i opened CS2, and loaded just a picture at random, went to image>size etc..

opening picture 11.9mb (remember, its a 8.2 million pixel camera)
Width = 2496 pix
Height = 1664 pix

Doc size width = 88.05cm
height = 58.07cm
Resolution= 72ppi Resample = unchecked.

all i require is a good photo soi can get a good print.
If you can come up with some sort of routine i could use, so after downloading pictures to my computer, i can open PS and adjust the picture so i know i have an A4 picture waiting to be printed, i would be gratefull.
many thanks
steve

Welles

Steve,

You are going to have to struggle to wrap your brain around the issue of pixel size, resolution, and print size. At first it always seems obscure at best, but it is a vital bit of Photoshop knowledge. In the top Image Size dialog, I've set up an image dimension of your camera's output and then changed the resolution to 300 with the resample unchecked. This means that the maximum print size you can have without resampling the image (think of that? as increasing or decreasing the number of pixels), is too small to fill an A4 paper size. You must resample the image (increase the number of pixels).

So I've resampled the image to fit the A4 Length in the bottom Image Size dialog. Note that the proportions of your original capture (photograph) aren't the perfect proportion for a completely filled A4 paper size. This is where you have to start adjusting your mental ideas to the reality. You wouldn't wish to change the proportions, I believe, so you're stuck with a border.

If you wished to automate your image resizing for print and all your images were the same size and orientation (landscape/portrait), you could record an action to open the image, rotate it from landscape orientation to portrait, resize it and save. In order to learn how to do that, look in Photoshop Help > Actions also there are a zillion Googlable sources for learning about creating actions in PS.

Good luck!