actual pixels, fit to screen and print size buttons question

[mrdinh]

in photoshop there are the actual pixels and the print size buttons when you hit the little hand...

i'm not sure what is the diff?...is the print size button the actual what i will see when it gets printed?...if so, then what is the actual pixels button...i know that is viewing at 100%...

because usually the print size looks better then the actual pixels image


thanks

help is appreciated

 

[Tron]

This really a question for Erik, he is the resident expert on this subject, but I beleive it has to do with the resolution (dpi) that you have your document set at.

 

[mrdinh]

can you forward this question to eric?

thanks

 

[John1]

Print Size: The magnification of the image is adjusted to display its approximate printed size, as specified in the Document Size section of the Image Size dialog box. Keep in mind that the size and resolution of your monitor affect the on-screen print size.

 

[Erik]

-Your monitor has a well-defined and, under normal circumstances, unalterable size.
-Your monitor gets its information from your video/graphics card.
-Your graphics card is working with your operating system, and in your operating system you set your monitor to display a certain number of pixels horizontally and vertically. What this does is chop up your display like a mosaic, and every single unit of this mosaic is called a pixel. So, because your monitor has a fixed size, the size of each pixel is also fixed by the setting you choose in your OS. If, for example, you choose 640x480 on a 21inch monitor, you will see the pixels. On a 14inch monitor less, because on the 21inch (7-14-21) the pixels are one and a half times as large.
-In comes Photoshop. Self-assured, a tad pretentious even, but it cannot change the settings of your monitor as these are controlled from a layer below it, the layer of your OS.
- Let's assume you have your 17inch monitor set at its ideal resolution: 1024x768pixels. Even at full-screen, your monitor cannot display an image that is 2056 pixels wide. Whitch is why Photoshop has this button "Fit to screen". What this does is NOT change the size of the pixels (this is locked) but it only displays a part of them, in this case: half. The "Actual pixels" button displays the image at full size. It is important to grasp that "Fit to screen" does not change anything to your image, but only displays less pixels than are in your file. "Actual pixels" displays them all.
-And then comes the problem: print size... Best is to forget about this option, most v-certainly when you're on a PC. It gives, at the best an approximation. Win puters are default set to have 92 pixels in each inch, whilst Photoshop only calculates with 72. This is not contradictory to what I said above as it is mostly a calculating algorythm. And secondly: as seen, you can set youir monitor's pixels at whatever size you want. Conclusion: you will not see on your monitor the exact size of what you are going to print.

Final conclusion: see the "actual pixles" button as yet another shortcut for 100% zoom. Forget about the other two: it is better to see your image at 50% or 25% zoom as you get half/ one quarter of the pixels, and this you can better do with the Navigator pallette as "Fit on screen" does a bit what it pleases; and print size is completely unpredicrable.

 

[mrdinh]

erik, thats quite a explanation...the reason i ask this is because i would like to know what the results of the image before i print...is that possible using one of the buttons say actual pixels or print size button?

 

[Erik]

What we are talking about is the size of your document. So what you need is to resize your doc to the size of your print.
Best way to do this is first decide what you want as a print resolution. If you want quality, then 300 dpi is best.

method:
1/ Open a new doc, white, 300 dpi and choose something easy like 3 inch wide if your monitor can display 900 pixels width.
2/ Double click on this background so as to make it editable, accept the default layer name.
3/ Edit Menu>Transform>scale
4/ Now take a ruler, hold it along the width of your doc against your screen and grab a handle at the side. Drag untill it matches your ruler, in our case: it should be 3 inch on your ruler.
5/ Now look either at the toolbar or at the info pallette and read the % at the W.

Remember this, as this is the scaling factor of your monitor/Photoshop setup.

Now everytime you want to print a doc at 300 dpi, you simply have to fill in this % in your navigator pallette to see your image displayed at true printing size.


Apart from this there is the calibration etc, but that is another story, and when you do a little search on this forum, you will find many topics, and many explanations, tips and tricks.

 

[Sark]

the reason i ask this is because i would like to know what the results of the image before i print

Just to clarify Erics comments.

When you print at 300dpi each pixel will print at a size of 1/300th of an inch.

Scaleing the document size on screen will show the size of the printed document on screen but, there will be fewer pixels and they will be approx 1/100th of an inch in size (depending on the res of your display).

Scaleing can only give an approximation of what the image will look like when printed. You will need to actually print to see the true printed quality of the image.

Sark

 

[Erik]

It is essential to understand that the size of a pixel if fixed by the choice you made in your os when you set your monitor resolution, and that under no circumstances these can be changed by another application. Photoshop does NOT resize any pixels: it just displays a number of them, depending on what you chose as.

When resizing/downsampling a document, it is best to do this in several steps and with % that make PS calculate the result.
When you want to zoom out so as to see the whole doc, it is best to do the opposite, and choose 50% (one out of two pixels) or 25% (one out of four pixels) as this gives the least distortion.

 

[acekin]

Better late than never, here is an article I wrote on the subject, the site is keptlight dot com and search for actual print size.