[Return to Start] [Lesson 1: Opening] [Lesson 2: Assessing] [Lesson 3: Cropping]
[Lesson 4:Rotating] [Lesson 5: Fixing Blemishes] [Lesson 6: Adjusting Color ] [Lesson 7: Sizing/Printing]

Lesson 7: Sizing and Printing

If you are going to print an image, you require a high resolution image. Digital images are comprised of pixels, small colored squares. If you don't know exactly what a pixel is, click here for a blow up of a section of the sunset.jpg image. In this image, you are looking at a blowup of the small mountain in the center of image - but blown up to show the pixel structure of the image. Photoshop applies a slightly different color to each square comprising the image. A very high resolution image will have millions of pixels within its 14x10 or 11x8 or 6x4 boundaries and our eyes won't see the small squares.

Photoshop provides you with information about images size and resolution, and allows you to alter the size, shape and resolution.

If you don't have it open already, open the image: sunset.jpg

Click on the IMAGE Menu -> Image Size

You should now see the dialogue box on the right.

This information tells us that:

• there are a total of 531 x 210 = 111,510 squares [pixels] making up this image.
• printed at its present settings, it will produce a print that is 7.375 x 2.917 inches at a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. Other things being equal, good printer will produce a reasonably attractive print at about 100 pixels/inch. This means that the pixels or the squareness of the components will not be showing.
• if you want to print this image at a larger size, the resolution will be even smaller.

Here, we have altered the dimensions of the print to 14 x 5.537 inches but the resolution has dropped to only 37.929 pixels per inch.

This tells us that in each inch of printing there are only 37.929 squares ... and probably the squares are going to start showing up.

Note that although we have altered the size and resolution of the print dimensions, the number of pixels comprising the image remains the same: 531x210 or 111,510 pixels.

Questions or Issues? Did the instructions work for you? If not, drop me a line and tell me about where you got stuck.

ray@raysweb.net