To get the best print quality when preparing images for print in photoshop you need to make the image a minimum of 300ppi (pixels per inch).
Anything over that will just take longer to process and print. Anything under that will have questionable quality. Professional publishers will have a spec sheet prepared with all the information you will need—platforms, file formats, ppi, size, etc. At Printhouse Corporation we have set up our own spec sheet for sending files and images.
When opening a image in photoshop you may get a box asking you what resolution to go for, please, do NOT go for 72dpi, although it will be saved as a smaller file, but the quality of it is very lousy.
Below shows the “image size” dialogue box. This usually shows 72ppi (please note you will not see much difference with the resolution on screen as most computer screens use 72ppi anyway.)
Below shows the “image size” dialogue box again. This time click off “resample image”, and make the resolution 300, when doing this you will notice the width and height change accordingly to the resolution you put in. This will be the eventual size of the printed image and a a rule, you must always do this when first opening an image in Photoshop.
To understand, You can also try this!
Open an image, any image, in Photoshop. In Photoshop’s Toolbox, double-click on the Zoom tool icon. That zooms your image to 100%. Now open the Image> Image Size dialog box. Uncheck the Resample box. Note that the upper part of the dialog box is grayed out — any changes made will not alter the number of pixels in the image; only the Document Size fields are available. (Prior to Photoshop 6, that area of the dialog box was more appropriately named “Print Size.”)
Double-click the Resolution field and enter a new value, any value, then click OK. Notice any difference in the image? Nope! None. No change at all. Photoshop is still working exclusively with the pixel dimensions. The actual content of the image file is unchanged when you change the resolution without checking the Image Size feature’s Resample box.
Here’s the deal:
–Each image consists of a given number of pixels. (Multiply the width in pixels by the height in pixels to get the exact number.)
–In Photoshop, you work only with those pixels.
–In Photoshop and on-screen, each pixel remains the same size, regardless of the image resolution.
–Image resolution determines the size of each pixel on the printed page.
Another way to resize an image in Photoshop, which will help when sizing a series of images uniformly, is to use the crop tool. Select the crop tool and then, below the main menu, input the dimensions and dpi you desire. Then, you can simply crop the image by selecting the entire canvas and pressing enter. This will automatically resize your image, plus, until you clear or change the parameters, your crop tool will perform the same exact function on any other images you are working with.
Printhouse Corporation get all sorts of questions on printing high quality images for print. We feel with our extensive knowledge of printing on a variety of sizes from, stationery, posters, banner up displays, and also our skills in producing artwork in studio gives us an understanding of making the most of getting the best out of your images.
Hope this helps!
