Setting Up Photoshop

Print Resolution

Level Basic

To print what you see on screen requires you to calibrate your monitor to match the printer output. Calibration can be done by eye, please refer to your monitors handbook and the Adobe Gamma correction for how to do this. The alternative method is expensive but accurate and will require purchase of monitor calibration software and analyser.

All photo's when opened in Photoshop are set to 72ppi resolution, this is for web based viewing and of low quality. You have probably bought a relatively good colour printer with resolution well beyond this. Consequently when your printer receives photo files to print if they are set to 72ppi the printer will will try to stretch the ppi of the photo to fit the default printer resolution, which probably ranges from 150 to 300 ppi.

The results are often disappointing and surprising to those who have got that super duper camera and printer. To correct this anomaly follow below...

Open Photo

CTRL+R      To bring up the rulers         (@ 72ppi the print will show 28" X 42" approx)

Image        >Image size      (CTRL+ALT+I)

You will see the resolution set at 72ppi, which is too low to get quality results from your printer or out print facility.

Before changing resolution "Resample Image:" must be UN-TICKED other wise Photoshop will re-sample the image, which will result in soft, burry and pixelated photos. Adjust your resolution to suit. 150ppi is usually adequate and will adjust print size to 13 X 20. Increasing resolution further reduces the print size more, any where between 150 and 300 is normally quite adequate.

When you click OK you will not see the image window change at all, but look at the rulers this is the true size of your image...

There is no loss of quality because you turned off "Resample image". Your image will now fit 11 X 17 (A4).

You will have to do this each time a new photo is opened.

Tip: Remember this only applies to photos taken with digital cameras. Scanned work is already high resolution.