Help with image size before taking image to printer.

Greetings all:

I have an Olympus D-40 and a C-50. I use Photoshop 7.0.

First of all, I've never taken a image straight from the camera to the
photo shop to get prints. I've always worked on the image before hand
in Photoshop. Sometimes I crop the image a little bit.

Here is my question. Is there a setting or certain configuration I can
do in photoshop that will show me what will be shown/printed if I get
the image printed in various sizes (5X7, 4X6,8X10, for example)? I
want to make sure that what I see on screen is what they will make
prints of-that they will not be cropping the photo. Does this make
sense? I want to make sure that I am not cropping off too much or that
the photo shop might crop something out that I wanted in, just because
my sizing/cropping was incorrect.

I know many of you must know what to do here so I'm looking for your
help.

I thank you in advance.


It's Mr. Rather B. Beachen to you

 

I'm still using the ancient PhotoShop 5.0. I click VIEW > PRINT SIZE. This
only shows me the image on my screen as it would be printed, not variations.

I would downsize the original image (in my case 23" at 72dpi) to 10",
increasing resolution accordingly, then check PRINT SIZE. (Viewed at 100%,
there should be no change in the onscreen image size.) Then downsize to 7",
again increasing resolution, and check that. Etc...

dwight

 

From: Mr. Rather B. Beachen

It sounds like you should crop your photo yourself to the exact aspect ratio
*before* sending it to the printer, so they won't have to make a choice on what
to crop out.

There are two tools in PS 7 that let you do this easily. One is the
rectangular marquee tool (upper left in the Tool box or type M), then set the
Feather = 0, change Style to Fixed Aspect Ratio (set it to 5x7 or 8x10 or
whatever for that print size), then drag the cursor and when you have it right
do Image > Crop. Best to save the original and make a copy for each print
size, I think.

The other way is using the Crop tool, which is similar but different ... read
up on it in Help. Most people prefer to use this, you can set the ratio and
the resolution so it will resize for you, but keep a backup copy since you
don't want to be resizing too much.

Bill

 

I suggest you crop your image to the exact ratio that will be printed.
Note: if you are having an 8x10 printed with a ¼" border your final print
will not be a 0.8:1.0 ratio but rather a 0.789:1.0 ratio

You may want to do any dodging and burning and contrast adjustments, but
color and brightness will generally be done by the lab and unless your
equipment is well calibrated to the same standard they use, you can't adjust
to their equipment.

 

Dear Mr. Rather B. Beachen to you and the world

I believe that some print machine now cater for the 4:3 ratio of digital
images thus avoiding the loss of print area.

In my experience delegating the printable area is to be avoided = find a
suitable 8x6 digiprinter near you

das B

 

While there are ways to display it 'actual size', as long as print size
is smaller than your monitor screen, this will not give you the same
quality as a paper print.

First of all, modern monitors seem to have more dynamic range than paper
prints. So this makes a monitor display look better than a print as far
as tonal range. Offsetting this, however, is that monitors do not have
the resolution of a medium size or large size print. You can print up
to about 300 pixels per inch with a good printer. On an 8 x 10 print,
this corresponds to a 3000 x 2400 pixel print. Few monitors can give
you this kind of resolution. even when you print at 200 ppi, this is a
2000 x 1600 pixel print. Unless you have a VERY good, very large
monitor, this is more than your monitor will likely show. Today's
consumer monitors range from about 1200 to 1600 pixels wide.

 

In that case, crop the photo to the correct aspect ratio /before/
you send it to the printer.

There are two tools in PhotoShop 7 that will let you do this:

- The crop tool. Enter the width and height dimensions (in inches) of
your print size in the tool options bar. This will constrain your
crop to the correct aspect ratio.

- The rectangular marquee tool. In the tool options bar, selct "Fixed
Aspect Ratio" in the Style menu - and enter the aspect ratio (you
can just use the dimensions in inches). Again, This will constrain
your selection to the correct aspect ratio. After making the
selection, do Image->Crop.

In your print shop is anything like mine, they always crop about 2%
off /all/ four edges when printing. As a countermeasure, I always leave
about 2% extra if edge detail is critical.