Help. Here's a really silly question about printing but I am confused

Hi there,

I have a Nikon 4300 camera and am taking pictures at 2272 x 1704 size
at 'fine' resolution.

Now, when I print these A4 size on my Epson Photo 950 the are
excellent quality.

However if I print them say 7x5 or 6x4 the image quality is very
grainy - in fact its just terrible.

I can understand the quality getting worse the larger the print but
why is it getting worse the smaller I print it.

I am changing the image size in Photoshop to 7x5 or 6x4 etc and
keeping it as 300dpi.

What am I doing wrong - its driving me crazy and my wife's fed up
having to cart around A4 prints!!!

Thanks
Brian

 

If I were doing it, I would would resize *without* resampling.
In other words, keep all your pixels, just resize the image
(unclick the 'resample' checkmark in the Image Size window).
Your resolution will go up, but the prints won't be bad.

-Raf

 

I dont know the resolutions available on the printer.. but try just
printing the photos by just selecting the printer paper size and
re-scale to fit in the printer dialogue...

If that fails, re-size using Image>Image re-size>re-sample image using
Bilinear, then add a little un-sharp mask...

I personally dont print using any aplication except Qimage from
ddisoftware.

 

"Brian" -
"I can understand the quality getting worse the larger the print but
why is it getting worse the smaller I print it.

I am changing the image size in Photoshop to 7x5 or 6x4 etc and
keeping it as 300dpi.

What am I doing wrong - its driving me crazy and my wife's fed up
having to cart around A4 prints!!!"
--------
Contrary to what you think is the correct proceedure, allow the
dpi or ppi to increase as the size of the print decreases. When the
file information is fed to your Epson the ppi or dpi is managed just
once.
Cropping tool option for resolution should be left blank. Never
interpolate the full image to a set amount and then crop.

mark_