Moron Newbie needs to email a Photoshop pic

[eloise2000]

Hi!
I'm new to this forum, but it seems to be a great spot.
My entire computer life is filled with stumbling into some fairly advanced things and not knowing many things that are elementary.

I want to email a photo, that I worked on in Photoshop 7, where I removed a piece of furniture and pasted and painted a wooden floor in it's place. I "saved for the web" in Jpeg and reduced the image to 56k.

I have two questions: first, can a person, who doesn't have a Photoshop program installed in the computer, open the attachment? Second, if I thought a photo to be print worthy, would there be a way in which to email so that it could be reproduced in high quality?

Thanks for your attention.

Eloise

 

[wbiss]

Welcome aboard eloise2000! Glad that you found us and hope that you enjoy your time here!

To answer your questions:
1. Yes, jpeg is a common cross-platform image type that can be viewed by most email programs and all browsers.
2. Take a look at the relationship between "web" and "print" in my example below. You will notice that if you increase the ppi of 72 (suitable for web) to 150 (suitable, in most cases, for print) the print image size will decrease accordingly. (Make certain that the "resample" box isn't ticked).
Simple solution, in a nutshell, you should start with the highest resolution (image size) available! You can read more about this here:
http://www.iboost.com/build/graphics/tutorials/wgforbeg/744.htm

Hope this helps...

 

[dv8_fx]

Welcome to forum, eloise2000.

As long as the image you sent isn't saved in Photoshops psd format, anyone can open and preview it.

For a good print, stay at 150dpi and save the image as a jpeg and zip the file with a compression apps like winzip. Pay attention to the size limit of your email attachment. If it doesn't fit the limit, you have to resize the image in PS.

Enjoy your time and avail yourself of all knowledge you'll find here.

vee

 

[dv8_fx]

Wendy, your quick . How did you scoot in there before me .

vee

 

[Erik]

You did everything that is necessary. You even did it very good. 56K is a very acceptable file size and can be easily opened, even by people who have a 56k modem.
So: yes, they can see it.

If you want to have print quality, you need something else. Like I explained in the Reducing images thread, an image is divided into small elements called "pixels" and these are organised like a rectangular kind of mosaic. Pixels contain specific information on what colour to display etc.

Now, a pixel has no real dimensions: it can adapt itself to what you give it. If you say that you want one pixel in each inch, the pixel will be one square inch large. Of course this can have only one colour. And the more pixels you press into one inch, the smaller they become, but the more accurate copy of your photograph your mosaic will be.
Therefore, for quality printing, you need more pixels in every inch than for simple display on the monitor.

Still with me?
So, suppose you have a pic of 4x5 inches. If you give it 72 pixels per inch (also knows as dpi, dots per inch) you get a mosaic of 288x360 pixels (4x72, and 5x72).
For good quality printing on a home/desktop printer, you need some 200 pixels per inch. The mosaic is then 800x1000 pixels, some eight times bigger. And you may not use jpg (that's for the web and email etc) but you need tiff, or photoshop's own psd.

So, you file will be much bigger, in this case, some 2,4 megabyte. That's big, too big for e-mail. What you can do to send it by e-mail is to compress it afterwards with Winzip or another tool like that. But it will still be a biggie for someone with a modem connection.

To summarize:
1/the more pixels there are in a file, the bigger it gets.
2/For print you need more pixels that for the web.
3/If you have a fixed size in inches, you will have more pixels when there are more pixels in each inch
4/If you have a fixed number of pixels, you can change the print size and quality by pressing more pixels in each inch, so that there are less inches.
5/the number of pixels per inch has no influence whatsoever for the web. Only the number of pixels is important. It is a common mistake to believe a monitor needs 72 dpi. See the Reducing images thread for explanation why. In fact it is a shame that there are still so-called tutorials online that insist on that lie. When you set your monitor to display 800 pixels horizontally, an image of 400 pixels wide will fill half of your screen horizontally. And by changing the resolution (the number of pixels per inch) you can change its physical size when printed. That's all there is to it.

You do this in Image>Image size. try every setting on this dialog because it's a very important one.

 

[eloise2000]

I am truly in awe of the fast expertise that I received here for my very first query.

I think that I've taken one tiny step toward enlightenment (not mankind!)

Thanks be to all

Eloise

 

[AppleCider]

First, welcome, Eloise!

Second, please do not call yourself a "moron newbie!" 8[

Don't be afraid to ask questions here. You've gotten some great answers here, and you'll learn a lot. You are certainly not a "moron" because you don't know something. You're willing to learn, and that makes you smarter than a lot of people!

 

[wbiss]

eloise2000:I think that I've taken one tiny step toward enlightenment (not mankind!)

B7 Cool!

Great, detailed explanation, Erik!

 

[Guest]

Welcome to the board eloise2000
I see that you got some good replies. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask.