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The Dark Room -- Photo Editing and Picture Taking. Advice, tutorials, questions on all things photoshop, photo editing, and taking pictures of beads or glass.

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  #1  
Old 2005-12-04, 6:17pm
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Default From camera to print...how do I maintain hi-res?

Hey folks!

Hopefully someone who is more well-versed at digicam pics will be able to help me figure out where I have my setup going wrong.

I have my digital camera set to take the highest resolution pics it can take. My question is, when I download the pics to my computer and edit them in Photoshop how do I get the pics to stay at a print quality resolution? Is there something I have to change in PS? I would like my pics to start out at at least 300dpi? What do I have to tweak?

I hope this question makes sense

Thanks in advance.

-Yee
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Old 2005-12-04, 7:33pm
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yeepers
Hey folks!

Hopefully someone who is more well-versed at digicam pics will be able to help me figure out where I have my setup going wrong.

I have my digital camera set to take the highest resolution pics it can take. My question is, when I download the pics to my computer and edit them in Photoshop how do I get the pics to stay at a print quality resolution? Is there something I have to change in PS? I would like my pics to start out at at least 300dpi? What do I have to tweak?

I hope this question makes sense

Thanks in advance.

-Yee

You need to keep pictures in "native format" of camera.... And there is probably about 100 of them (so don't ask) ... When you move picture from native format (of camera), to GIF or JPG, you are compressing the color levels to make picture smaller (in kbytes).... Also unconsciously you are probably changing the DPI level of picture also. Also you will find that if you reduce picture size you to something like 600 x 480 you are reducing DPI to about half what picture would be if it were 1200 x 960...

Huge pictures with large DPI count takes a lot of screen to display.... Unconsiously by reducing picture to size that will fit screen you are dropping DPI count...

Dale
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  #3  
Old 2005-12-04, 7:58pm
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When I print digital files for my gallery quality photographs I use 240dpi at the size I want (11x14 etc.) That is what works best of my Epson 2200. Check your printer for specs. Often the information is available on their web site.
If you are having someone else print then save it at it's biggest from start to finish. Do not save it as a jpg. Tiff is what I use.
What does photoshop say is the size when you first download it?
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:16pm
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After downloading the pic from my camera and opening the file in PS if I check the image size it's telling me that the image is at 180 pixels/inch.

I'm assuming that if that's the best my camera can do at the highest resolution then there's no way I can increase the dpi after the fact?

Pixels-wise the original picture is HUGE - probably in the range of 2000 x 1000 type of thing. Where I'm getting hung up is if this is sufficient/suitable for print?

I think I'm way over my head

-Yee
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:22pm
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Yes you have enough information for print. What you would do is change the dpi box in photoshop to say 240. To compensate for stealing that information from the pixels you would down size them. I can't remember the ratio you must have darn it. But I would take an image, save it as a tiff in the original size. Then I would size it at 240 dpi and play with the pixel sizes to get a few different sizes. Print them all out and see how big you can go before you lose quality.
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:22pm
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what are you trying to do?
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:28pm
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Hey Suzy,

I'm just trying to make sure I understand what's going on with my dpi etc. so that if someone asks me to send them a print quality pic I'm actually sending them something they can work with

-Yee
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:30pm
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Ah, ok. Well you just ask them how they want it saved and they will tell you As long as you don't need it to be bigger than 4 inches in either direction I think you have enough infomation.
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Old 2005-12-04, 8:33pm
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Quick clarification on dpi and pixels. dpi is dots per inch when printing. for the web your screen can only really see about 72. That is the dpi I use to save for the web. Pixels are more for web use. It is a way to measure how it is going to show up on someones screen. If you are printing you ignore the pixels and look at the print size boxes in the photoshop image size window.
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Old 2005-12-05, 6:41am
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Ahh... it sounds like I'm at work...

The easiest way is to work in RAW format if your camera offers it. If not, shoot in the highest resolution the camera has, transfer it to your computer, open it and save the image as a .tif or .eps file. Both of those files are lossless file types, which mean that every time you open and close it you don't lose any image quality like you do with .jpg files. And, they are industry-standard files, so you won't find any printers that can't use them. You can also use .bmp files, but they can sometimes cause problems. Printers work in CMYK instead of RGB, so they may want you to convert the files before you send them in.

*Warning - this next part is technical and boring*

The standard for printing raster images (like photos) is 300 dpi. If you are having something printed, ask the printer what they prefer. Printers are concerned with DPI because that limits the line screen they can use. Line screen is how many dots per inch you see in the printed piece. If you look at a newspaper, the photos are made up of dots, and it's easy to see each individual dot. They usually use 80-85 line screen. Higher quality printing like in magazines uses a higher line screen. Those photos are made up of dots as well, but the dots are smaller and closer together. They are usually 150-175 line screen. Why do you need to know this? Because the line screen the piece will be output at determines what dpi the photos need to be. The rule of thumb is that the dpi needs to be twice what the line screen is. So, for a 150 line screen job, the dpi needs to be 300. If the dpi is higher, that won't hurt, but if it's lower, it will.

That really doesn't matter when printing to inkjet printers, as they use a different kind of resolution and matrix for building screens.

Oh, and one last thing, you can make photos smaller, but you can't make them bigger. If you take a 300 dpi photo, you can make it 200 dpi, 150 dpi, 72 dpi or whatever. But, you can't go the other way.

Okay. That concludes Pre-Press 101. Any questions?
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  #11  
Old 2005-12-05, 8:23am
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Me! Me! I'm raising my hand!!!

Chad, my raw format saves my image at 240dpi. Are you saying I can't decrease the size and up the dpi to 300 for printing? I know I have for slides and do it for modern postcard all the time.
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Old 2005-12-05, 8:30am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuzyQ
Me! Me! I'm raising my hand!!!

Chad, my raw format saves my image at 240dpi. Are you saying I can't decrease the size and up the dpi to 300 for printing? I know I have for slides and do it for modern postcard all the time.
Yes... If you try to go up to 300dpi you get something like pixilation and picture quality actually gets worse..... Going down is no problem...

Also taking graphic from "traditional" slide is different process than from a digital image... Traditional slides are not dependent on DPI as digital images are... Traditional slides are continuous tonal variation pictures that is why the enlarge so well...

Dale
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Old 2005-12-05, 8:35am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuzyQ
Me! Me! I'm raising my hand!!!

Chad, my raw format saves my image at 240dpi. Are you saying I can't decrease the size and up the dpi to 300 for printing? I know I have for slides and do it for modern postcard all the time.
No, you can still change the resolution. But, you will be making the image "smaller". Go into Photoshop and open the image. Click Image>Image Size. First make sure the "Resample Image" box IS NOT checked. Then, in the "Resolution" box type 300. You will notice that the width and height get smaller. But just going from 240 to 300 will be a small decrease in size, and the image will still be much larger than you will probably need it to be for the finished product.

DPI stands for "dots per inch". All you are doing is telling the program how many dots to put into an inch. Without resampling, what it's doing is telling it that there should be 300 dots (pixels) per inch. That is why the dimensions get smaller. As long as the "Resample Image" box is not checked, you can type any number you want into the "Resolution" field, and change it back and forth all you want. That isn't changing anything on the photo. All it's doing is telling the program how to interpret the information.
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Last edited by Cosmo; 2005-12-05 at 8:39am.
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Old 2005-12-05, 9:17am
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Quote:
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Yes... If you try to go up to 300dpi you get something like pixilation and picture quality actually gets worse..... Going down is no problem...

Also taking graphic from "traditional" slide is different process than from a digital image... Traditional slides are not dependent on DPI as digital images are... Traditional slides are continuous tonal variation pictures that is why the enlarge so well...

Dale
Oops... Looks as if I missed in that one.... Oh well I am learning too...

Dale
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Old 2005-12-05, 9:19am
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Chad,

Thanks for the explanations Pretty straightforward I think. So, basically, it looks like my camera does not work in RAW format (not a super high quality camera) so I am taking all my pics at the highest res possible. When I open the file in PS it looks like the standard DPI is 180 (some setting that just carries across from my camera?). So if I go up the DPI without resampling I get the DPI I want but am totally limited as to the actual print size of the image.

So....if I wanted to be able to get bigger pics at 300 dpi basically my camera won't allow this, right? So is the solution to get a better camera?

-Yee
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Old 2005-12-05, 9:44am
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Well, 180 is pretty standard for cameras. Some of the really high end cameras take pictures at higher resolution, but you're talking about $2500 and up cameras. It all depends on what the requirements are for what you are getting printed. If you are printing smaller images, like 3" x 5" or so, you should be fine just taking the picture at the largest file size you can (which you should be doing all the time anyways). Even going from 180 dpi to 300 will make the picture just about half the original size.

My camera, for instance, takes photos that are 3072 x 2048 at 180 dpi. That makes the image size 17.067" x 11.378". Going to 300 dpi makes it 10.24" x 6.827", which is still pretty big.
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Old 2005-12-05, 10:44am
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Thanks Chad.
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Old 2005-12-05, 10:46am
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Sounds good. Thanks for the great info!!

-Yee
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