Print size doesn't match print size...need help

[Robert]

:wacko:I'm having a real trial trying to print an image to a specific size.
I am wanting to print an image for a matted frame, and the image size needs to be 11 X 14 inches.
I decided to print it on Epson Premium Lustre, paper size 11.7 X 16.5 inches, (A3).
In Photoshop CS3 > Image > Image Size, I have tried both selecting and de-selecting Resample Image. Also, I have selected and de-selected Constrain Proportions. I do want to constrain proportions and for the image in question, I don't have much room for cropping.

The photo, when I first open it, is 2464 pixels wide by 1632 high and I convert to inches. I am unable to arrive at the exact document size and the closest I arrived at in PS that would at least allow me to cut the print to fit, (but with unwanted cropping) was 11.0 X 16.607 inches, Res dpi 300.

In the printer Page Setup menus I see the same dimensions showing which I set in PS, and I've selected the correct paper etc, but the image is printed with incorrect dimensions... 10 5/8 X 16 inches.
I have quite a few frames of different sizes I've purchased with mats, and really need to be able to print exact sizes. Is that possible?
Can you point me to the best way to resize images for printing, using PS CS3 and printing from an Epson 3800 Pro.
I'm sure I'm missing something basic.http://www.nikoncafe.com/vforums/images/smilies/redface.gif

[Rudi]

I just select "Print", then resize the image in the menus that follow. In other ways - I let the printer driver deal with it (never had a problem). :)

[Keith]

Robert, the best $50 you will EVER spend in photography is picking up a printing software called Qimage plus you get free upgrades everytime they improve the software. Most pro photogs I know use it, fabulous for interpolation, color management yada yada. I cant speak highly enough!! they do have a free 30 day trial

http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/

[beaucamera]

Robert, digital photos really don't fit well with standard frames and mats.
I don't know why there isn't a better match, probably because they started from the days of film.
This has been a problem for me too.
Typically I've found you have to crop and eliminate part of your photo.
That's why I sometimes start with a canvas size and image resolution that I want to print and use the PS place command to insert the image on a background layer.

You can then transform the image to the size you want.
This will help you see the compromises you'll be making vis-a-vis crop or distortion.

Virginia
aka beaucamera

[Robert]

I just select "Print", then resize the image in the menus that follow. In other ways - I let the printer driver deal with it (never had a problem). :)

Rudi,

I have followed the menus as you suggest but I have had little success in having the print match the dimensions I select. Are you using any specialized software to help with that?
Thanks for your response...appreciated!!

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Keith,

I have often heard of Quimage and I will certainly check it out. I feel I have come so far in understanding what's necessary to complete a digital process from capture, calibration, PP and printing, and getting hung up because the print size isn't exact is frustrating. Thanks Keith!!

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Virginia,

I was wondering about that Virginia, but wasn't sure of the best way to approach it. Yes, the transformation tool will resize the image and I will still be able to maintain/constrain proportions. If I understand correctly... I set the canvas size to the print size I need, drop the shot onto a layer and transform it to fit, then print? I presum I must set the Printer menu to the same dimensions.
I'll have a go at that and keep my fingers crossed. I must say, I am surprised that anything more than simply dialing in the size would be necessary.
Thanks for your input Virginia!!

[Rudi]

Rudi,

I have followed the menus as you suggest but I have had little success in having the print match the dimensions I select. Are you using any specialized software to help with that?
Thanks for your response...appreciated!!

You might still have to crop the image to the right ratio, Robert. But once you have done that, the printer driver will let you resize the image to any size that then should correspond to what you need. BTW, if you're on the Mac (and I think you are), then Qimage is no good for you unless you want to run it in Windows...

[David Cramer]

Robert - I've never used the transformation tool, so I'm not sure how it works. What you are describing makes me think it's not the correct way for you to make an 11X14 print, as your digital image is going to have a different ratio straight out of the camera. My mainstay print is 11X14 as that makes it easy for my customers to go to almost any store that carries frames and mats to inexpensively frame their print. To achieve this, I crop the master file (before final sharpening) to that size at 200 or 300 dpi, depending on the printer to be used. Even if you don't crop your file, it sounds like the uncropped part will end up under the matting anyway, so why not crop it to 11X14?

[beaucamera]

What you are describing makes me think it's not the correct way for you to make an 11X14 print, as your digital image is going to have a different ratio straight out of the camera.

David, you can keep the same aspect ratio with the transform tool if you press the shift key when you transform. Transform also gives you the ability to reposition the image on the background should you want to make minor adjustments.

The downside of this approach is that you can distort the image if you don't use the shift key.

When you use the place command, you are basically using a PSB file so that keeps the image resolution.

Transforms a great tool.
Give it a try sometime.
:chatterbox::coo3l::chatterbox:

Virginia
aka beaucamera

[Robert]

Thanks again Rudi! I'm on PC. I will have to study up on this some more because I think I am misunderstanding something basic here. If I select constrain proportions I should be able to resize to any dimension...at least that would make sense. :confused_1:

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[Robert]

Robert - I've never used the transformation tool, so I'm not sure how it works. What you are describing makes me think it's not the correct way for you to make an 11X14 print, as your digital image is going to have a different ratio straight out of the camera. My mainstay print is 11X14 as that makes it easy for my customers to go to almost any store that carries frames and mats to inexpensively frame their print. To achieve this, I crop the master file (before final sharpening) to that size at 200 or 300 dpi, depending on the printer to be used. Even if you don't crop your file, it sounds like the uncropped part will end up under the matting anyway, so why not crop it to 11X14?
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David,

When you refer to cropping, are you saying I should resize the image in PS via Image>Image Size then input 11X14, or are you saying to use the crop tool? No...not the crop tool, that's not what you mean).
I usually prefer to work at 300dpi and yes, my D2H will put out a different ratio. If I select a different ratio in PS, how can I ensure that the printer prints to that.
...sorry for all the questions...I'm getting there but still fairly newby with printing.

[Jeff JTPhoto]

Robert cropping is a necessity unfortunately because the aspect is totally different between the camera and standard frames. Its either crop or buy custom frames and mattes to fit the image ratio. The Crop Tool is a very quick way to get the exact size and DPI all at once and be able to really fine tune the crop to exactly how you want it without going through multiple steps and guesswork..

- Choose the Crop tool in your toolbar
- in the Crop tools Dimensions boxes type in your dimensions i.e. width 14" Height 11"
- In the DPI box type in the DPI you wish your print to be i.e. 300
- Now simply put your cursor in the top left corner, click and hold the left mouse button and drag down toward the bottom right corner. Let go of the mouse button.
- You can now click in the center of this crop and move the crop square around on the photo or you can grab a corner and make it bigger or smaller all the while still keep the size aspect and DPI.
- Once you like your crop click ENTER or click on the checkmark in the toolbar to accept the crop and the image will be resampled to 11x14 @ 300DPI.
-Thats it, DONE!

Once you get use to using this tool you can make pre-sets so you don't have to keep typing in the sizes.. PhotoShop actually has the standard photo sizes there for you in the pre-sets.

While in the Print Preview window be sure that the Size to Fit checkbox is not checked as this may auto resize the image for the paper size you are using.

[Rudi]

I love how there are always at least a dozen ways to achieve exactly the same thing in Photoshop! Some good advice in this thread... :)

[MiriamJ]

Hi Robert,

You've been given so much good advice, you probably don't need anymore, but I'll give you some more food for thought. This is how I do mine. It's slow, so if you are doing a lot of pictures, I'd probably find another way.

I see your printer prints at max resolution of 2880X1440, so the first thing I would do is set my dpi at something that would go evenly into those figures so there won't be an extra conversion during printing that will affect quality. In your case, I would use 360. This can be set in the image size dialog box. This decreases the size of the picture, and how many dpi is sent to the printer, but the resolution is unaffected. (Be sure to uncheck resample image so your resolution is unaffected.)

Here's how the math works.

Width before:

8.213" X 300 pixels/inch=2464 pixels

Width after:

6.844" X 360 pixels/inch=2464 pixels

No change in resolution.

Next I bring the size up in 10% increments. I have checked all 3 boxes: the scale styles, constrain proportions, and resample image. I set the resample image to bicubic smoother. Change either the pixel dimensions or document size to percent, change the amount to 110 and hit ok.

Keep increasing by 10% until you've increased to larger than you wanted, then undo so that at least one figure is smaller than what you are trying to achieve. Going back to Image Size, and keeping the boxes checked and the resampling to bicubic smoother, set the document size so that one dimension is right and one is too big.

(In other words if your picture is to be 7"X11", one side would be exactly 7" and the other more than 11", or one side would be 11" and the other more than 7".)

Note: At this point, you've kept quality by never increasing more than 10% at a time, the dpi is what the printer uses best, and your proportions are unchanged.

Your photo should now be at 11"X7.285". All that's left is to crop .285" off of the top, the bottom, or both. I generally use the rectangular marquee tool and set the fixed ratio, in this case width 11 and height 7. Make the marquee as big as possible, adjust it to where you want to crop and go to image pulldown at the top of your screen to crop and voila! you have a perfectly sized 11"X7" photo at the correct resolution with a minimum of quality loss.

I don't print many photos, and almost always it's something I want to be the best I can do, so usually I do it this way, but if I were doing a lot of them, I'd get a program to do it. :)

As far as I know, this makes sense, if it doesn't feel free to chime in with any suggestions. :)

[David Cramer]

Yes, Robert, the crop tool. Actually nowadays I use Genuine Fractals, which gives a slightly better resize/crop than the Photoshop crop tool... but not by much. Before that, I used Jeff's method and got very good results from simple cropping. GF gives me slightly better results for upsizing than PSCS3, so that's why I got that software. I know some photographers who would never crop, but that's a personal decision. One friend of mine considers it an insult to crop an image. I'm not that invested!! The entire print procedure contains alot of steps that can resize an image. As Miriam points out, your printer is going to convert you image dpi to the amount it uses, if you don't do it ahead of time.

I always attempt to shoot my images with the knowledge they will probably be cropped to 11X14 or 16X20, which are fairly standard frame and matting sizes. It just makes the whole process a lot easier if you print and sell alot of images. I'm guessing you can find posts on the internet that claim cropping ruins an image, but to my eyes, that is simply not the case. My cropped images print up beautifully, even when set to 200 dpi (which is a standard for my hp printers).

[Jeff JTPhoto]

David is correct about the cropping Robert. In the old days us photographers never saw the crop, but when we sent a 35mm negative in to our favorite lab for processing to get a 5x7, 8x10, 11x14,16x20 etc., the cropping was done for us by the lab technician and usually at their own discretion. Now we have the control to crop how we like.

As far as fancy programs like GF, S-Spline, etc., I have tried the trial versions of a few, and bought a couple others only to find that unless I am printing in excess of 16x20" prints or from very heavy crops there is no benefit to running these extra programs.
I have done a lot of print testing and have wasted more time, money, ink and paper then I care to remember, trying to find the best resizing process and/or software. Miraim, your point about setting the DPI in a divisible of the printer output is of course a sound one and a step I often forget, however since PS CS, there is no longer a benefit in upsizing in 10% increments. As a matter of fact it is now found that it introduces more artifacts and enhances any artifacts already there, which affect the ability to sharpen the final resized image. One shot upsize with Bicubic Smoother in later versions of PS is now the better method other then using GF, S-Spline or other professional interpolation software.

[Robert]

Well I have to say I am blown away with all this help, but I'm not surprised that so many here have come forward to share collective knowledge. Thanks very much to all of you!!! I can't tell you how relieved I am, because my office floor is littered with perfectly good and expensive prints I can't use.rolleyes;

Jeff,

As I'm writing this, my printers firing up and if all goes well a friend will have the print I promised by the end of the day. I've never used Bicubic Interpolation but have some info on it here and I'll see what I can make of it. I've often used the Crop Tool but only to crop an image without any concern about the resulting file size or dimensions.
When I drag the crop tool and hit enter, I have "cropped" away some of the image if I have not dragged as far as the bottom right corner, and in many cases that will be fine, but if there are important aspects of an image which can't be cropped away, then dragging the tool to completely cover the image from corner to corner with the settings set as you've mentioned will maintain the entire image but re-sized/re-sampled?
I'm pleased to know that PS has presets, or in the case of bulk printing I can make my own.
Thanks Jeff!!!

(I'll be looking for tutorials on the use of Bicubic Smoother.):)
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Mirium,

I believe one can never have too much information and I am intrigued with your process. To understand all the factor involved with resizing resolution and how that relates to printing is a benefit, and I will see if I can put into play the steps you've outlined. I don't print very many shots either, but if the public starts beating a path to my door for limited edition prints, I better be ready!!!;)

Than you Mirium!:)
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David,

I agree with you...if cropping is necessary then that's what should take place...whatever is best for the image. One of the reasons I have wanted a higher MP camera is so that I can crop, even heavily, for the picture within the picture. Many of my images are composites anyway so cropping is something I often do.
This resizing issue however has been a puzzle until now.

Thanks David!:)

[Jeff JTPhoto]

When I drag the crop tool and hit enter, I have "cropped" away some of the image if I have not dragged as far as the bottom right corner, and in many cases that will be fine, but if there are important aspects of an image which can't be cropped away, then dragging the tool to completely cover the image from corner to corner with the settings set as you've mentioned will maintain the entire image but re-sized/re-sampled?

Thanks Jeff!!!

Before you go any further: Go into EDIT>PREFERENCES>GENERAL and make sure the Image Interpolation is set to BICUBIC SMOOTHER (Best for Enlargements).

Robert, if you put the pre-set sizes (Exact same size as the image) in the Crop Tools tool bar and crop from top to bottom it will act as the resize and resample (interpolation) tool, and the image will be done all in one simple step using the DEFAULT Interpolation method set in preferences.

However if you put in the 11x14 figures and use this on your native uncropped image direct from camera the aspects are not and cannot be the same without stretching, shrinking, or cropping. i.e. It cannot turn an 8x12 (native aspect to your camera) into a 8x10 without cropping. Dragging from top to bottom will leave some space on one side or the other or a little on both sides cropped off.

NOTE: When you drag the toolhandles, use only the corner ones and drag on the diagonal in order to keep the aspect ratio. If you use TOP, BOTTOM, or SIDE handles you will stretch the image and change the aspect.

So, if you must have the whole frame to make the image work you'll need a custom frame and matte.

Try this first now, on your computer to see what I mean and by all means let us know if you need more help.

[Robert]

So, if you must have the whole frame to make the image work you'll need a custom frame and matte.

I now understand much more...thanks to all the great help I've received. Unfortunately, the most important features of the shot I was hoping to print at 11X14 are at the far ends of the image, and so...custom framing is what I need. Transforming won't give me the whole image within the newly selcted canvas size...I have to pull some of the image beyond the bounds to cover the canvas.

My next step is to learn how to take a shot so that the resulting image can be printed to a specific size. ;)
...a big cheer from me to all of you....Thank you thank you!!:cheer:

[beaucamera]

Transforming won't give me the whole image within the newly selcted canvas size...I have to pull some of the image beyond the bounds to cover the canvas.

My next step is to learn how to take a shot so that the resulting image can be printed to a specific size. ;)
...a big cheer from me to all of you....Thank you thank you!!:cheer:

Good Luck, Robert.
There's no free lunch!

Virginia
aka beaucamera

P.S. You can always step back before you click that shutter.
:):):)
Then you'll have a little extra image to work with.

[MiriamJ]

Miraim, your point about setting the DPI in a divisible of the printer output is of course a sound one and a step I often forget, however since PS CS, there is no longer a benefit in upsizing in 10% increments. As a matter of fact it is now found that it introduces more artifacts and enhances any artifacts already there, which affect the ability to sharpen the final resized image. One shot upsize with Bicubic Smoother in later versions of PS is now the better method other then using GF, S-Spline or other professional interpolation software.

Jeff, Thanks for the update. I knew PS had significantly advanced in many areas, I didn't know that was one of them. It'll save a lot of time in the future. :)