Printing Question

[newtothegame]

Hello I'm new to the game.

Quick question and hopefully a quick answer about printing images from Photoshop.

I have an image that I have edited and want this printing in a few different sizes and each one will be framed. The frames will be 8x6, 10x8, 12x10, 16x12 20x16

Do I need to have a different project for each size that I will be printing or do I create one project and then change the print/export settings?

Thanks

 

[IamSam]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

As we all do things differently, I find it easier to preserve the original file and change the project or image size in Ps and saving a PSD file for each size via "save as". I tend to have more editing options and control over the printed outcome doing it in this manner.

But as I always say.............there's more than one way to do something so hopefully others will chime in.

 

[newtothegame]

Yes this does make sense as you have more control over things.

It would be interesting to know if its is possible and how if I just kept one project for them all.

 

[IamSam]

It would be interesting to know if its is possible and how if I just kept one project for them all.

You can. Just adjust the size in the original PSD file, print, adjust to the next size, print...........and so on. If you need to keep the original file size, back up or convert back to original size. Having the extra files is not a big problem. You would of course name them appropriately, place in a folder, and they would not take up much space.

But you can easily use the export settings and save the image. Then print from that saved image. I just prefer printing direct from Ps...............I have less to deal with.

 

[newtothegame]

Ok I see

If I copied everything over to a new project. Can guide lines be copied over as well?

Im creating an white boarder around the image and I'm using guide lines to do this.

 

[IamSam]

If I copied everything over to a new project. Can guide lines be copied over as well?

Well.......not really.

You can use an action to recreate guides to a specific document size.

As of Ps 2014, there is a new guide layout option under the "View" menu. You can set up your guides and then save them as a preset, which you can then load into a new document.

You can use a script/plugin to copy and paste repeating guides from one document to another.

This is yet another reason why I use PSD files for each project size. The guides scale as you increase or decrease the image size even if you change height or width. Less to deal with.

 

[ex_teacher]

Hello I'm new to the game.

Quick question and hopefully a quick answer about printing images from Photoshop.

I have an image that I have edited and want this printing in a few different sizes and each one will be framed. The frames will be 8x6, 10x8, 12x10, 16x12 20x16

Do I need to have a different project for each size that I will be printing or do I create one project and then change the print/export settings?

Thanks

This is a simple question that can generate enormously complex answers and heated debates . Whole books are written on this.

I heartily agree with IAmSam’s response by creating individual saved files for each print size. Here’s what I would typically do.

Changing Image Size:
Of specific note you are printing the same image to different aspect ratio papers. For an example a camera that creates an image with 4000x6000 pixels has an aspect ratio of 2x3. That does not print well on an 8”x10” piece of paper since that is an aspect ratio of 4x5. The three immediately obvious solutions are:

1. Crop the image to 4x5 ratio
2. Best fit to paper and then cut off the unused white paper after printing
3. Leave a white border around the image appropriate to the paper shape.

The last is what you appear to want . The actual image size on paper will be what looks best to the OP. For example using my 4000x6000px image as an example and using ‘Image/Image Size’ ( when the dialog boxes are reset to Inches) the maximum/best fit on 8”x10” produces an image of 6.666”x 10” with no space on the long ends and white on the other sides of .666”. Framed that would be ugly. However resampling to 8” on the long side, creates an 5.333”x8” image with 1” space on the long ends and 1.333” on the other sides. This quickly allows you to see dimensions of potential image sizes in the image size dialog box…just don’t check the resample box at this time so no pixels will be lost.

Changing Canvas Size:
After having decided on an image size, go to ‘Image/Canvas Size’ and punch in an 8”x10”canvas size making sure you have selected WHITE as your ‘Canvas Extension Color’. That will automatically center the image. I usually append the final version file name with something like filename_print8x10.psd and then save. This process gives fine control over how the image will look like on any given paper size and it very, very quick after it is done a few times

As an aside, and as a good example of providing way too much information, after the ‘image size’ step you can duplicate the image (CTRL +J) and then go ahead and change ‘canvas size’. Under some circumstances this opens up some fine-tune capabilities that are easy to understand and easy to do. After selecting both layers, use the ‘move tool’ to perform various alignments (like align to center or align to left side) and/or use the X/Y requesters in the Properties Box to place the upper image layer in a very precise location. Quite slick and easy actually. OR this can be done out of order, if it makes more sense, by creating a blank white page in the size of the paper needed and drag and dropping an image onto this specified size 'paper page'. Transform the size of the dropped image using handles while constraining the aspect ration with the shift key. Using the align functions and or property boxes to affect this floating image can be very powerful. If you resize the image using the Property Box make sure the aspect ratio is locked.

Caveat for the picky: I’ve ignored what image resolution is ideal for printing. That opens up a huge potential discussion which I will basically ignore except to say higher resolution is better up to a point so don’t throw away the information contained in existing pixels. In a perfect world and wanting to optimize printing you should resample to the native resolution of the printer (generally 720ppi for Epson printers and 600ppi for many but not all, others, One half that works well also) I won’t go into when this does and doesn’t have much of an effect so generally I just recommend doing it since you need to use something. .And after creating this last resampling you will want to do a final (subtle) output sharpening

Good luck