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Newb - Shrinking Digital Photos?

R

Rustynuts

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Feb 6, 2003
Messages
10,346
I was trying to shoot some photos at 1600x1200 and superfine pitch on my A60. This is the highest setting on the camera. Then I imported the files into Paint Shop Pro to screw with shrinking to wallet size or whatever as the file comes out fixed at 8x10 or whatever for 1600x1200 format. Basically I wanted to get a higher rez smaller print for "photo" quality prints on nice paper.

I did a resize routine but IIRC the pixels per inch didn't move automatically. Since you basically have a fixed number of pixels in the file, wouldn't you need to increase the pixels per inch when reducing the print size to retain all digital info? Or am I not getting something in this digital stuff.

If you increase the pixel per inch, do you need to calculate exactly based on the new print size? When I tried it when reducing the print size to 3x5 and increasing the pixels per inch (just guessed), the print seemed to come out worse!
 
Maybe someone else has a better idea, but I just send the original file to the print shop. If you were printing from your printer, don't you just click print and select 8X10?

I'm shooting at 3264X2448, but I wonder if I need to shoot the large to get a decent 8X10 print? Questions questions.
 
I don't use PSP, but I hear it's pretty similar to Photoshop in this kind of thing. My process is as follows:

1) Original image is, say 3024x2016 at 72dpi. This would lead to a 42 by 28 inch print if I tried to print it out as is (i.e. without telling Photoshop to automatically resize it to fit the paper).

2) Open the "Image Resize" dialog box. Here I can set the resolution (pixels per inch) and the actual pixel size.

3) Uncheck the "Resample Image" option. You don't want to resample the image. Or you'll end up with an image that's 12600x8400 for 300dpi.

4) Choose the resolution that produces the size of print you want. For a 3024x2016 image, turning it up to 300dpi will produce an image that fits nicely on a standard 8.5x11" piece of paper.

Hopefully this is roughly what you'd do in PaintShop Pro. Any way you go about it, you should definitely try to avoid resampling the image (i.e. changing the number of pixels). If your software doesn't have an option that prevents you from having to worry about it, you should definitely calculate the correct resolution.
 
Don't resize using the image resize button, you are only resampling the image.

Use the print setup to resize it during printing only.

1600x1200 = 4x6 at 300dpi

BB
 
There's a few factors in printing that get people messed up all the time. Lets take the example of printing to inkjet. A lot of people over time have decided through trial and error and just because they feel like it that rezzing (or any spelling variant) your file to 300ppi is best for the majority of inkjets. So if you're printing an 8x10 you'd want your image size to be 8*300 by 10*300 or 2400x3000. Also, because if you send the full file to some printers, the printer will resample it in the driver, people like having control over that as well. So they'll res it to 300ppi at the print size they want before clicking print.

Does it ultimately matter how you do it? Not to most people, but generally we have the students do it the same way to keep it uniform so we can narrow down problems better. And a lot of pros do it the same way. Determine your final print size, res your image to that size at 300ppi and hit print. That's all.

To make an 8x10 print generally I'd say 3mp is fine as long as it's from a decent camera. Obviously it depends somewhat on your expectations, but that kind of resolution should suffice.
 
and lets of course not forget that a HUGE part of it deppends on the type of photo... ie high contrast, low contrast, lots of small details (family portrait), etc.


Also, i would highly recommned you look into interpilation stuff... i know there are lots of free programs out there, i just donmt remmember any names. they use somewhat complex algorythms for blowing up an image.
 
So is 300 dpi pretty much the standard for photo quality? I would have thought it to be higher.
 
300ppi is optimistic for many inkjet printers. They advertise thousands of dpi, but all those dots go in to creating (in a basic sense) 16x16 cells to make a 256 level image (8 bit). It's not really like that because of halftoning but you don't get a real resolution of continuous tone pixels over several hundred.
 
I've got a big Lexmark C910 I can leach off of at work. Have to find out what rez it can do. :D

OK, this is a big color laser. The newer 912 version boasts a "2400" which I assume is 2400 dpi? What can this baby do?
 
Laser printers kinda suck for photographs generally. They're great for text, but they have more trouble modulating dot size, or dot placement effectively when compared to an inkjet.
 
I agree laser printers are terrible for prints. I love my Cannon for prints. Which is the only Cannon product I will own.
 
you should try to print at 150 for good quality 100 should be the lowest

upgrade your printer to a r800 epson
its the shizzle

when i do digitall processing
I take my huge image from my coolpix 4500

press Shift S (image size)
change the DPI to 125
ratio to 1.5 (before its like 1.498 something )
and then type in 12in for the size
the other one changes to 18
and wham bam thank you mam im done
slap on my name and save it as a 10mb tiff file
upload on deviant art
and woo hoo you people can buy my picture http://www.deviantart.com/print/65944/
 
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