Printing first time

[jenkins]

<p>As strange as it sounds my pictures just sit on my laptop, i have never actually printed anything. A friend really likes some of my pictures and gave me a couple of 11 x 14 picture frames for me to put the pictures into.</p>

<p>So what i need to ask is what next? I have shot in RAW and saved in large jpegs, is there any obvious pit falls i should check before i send it off to the printer, what should the DPI be etc?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

[yusav_gherigson]

Print them at 200 - 300 DPI, and make sure that when you change the DPI you uncheck "Resample"

[jenkins]

<p>Why is there a choice between 200 - 300 Corey?</p>

[James G. Dainis]

The pixel dimensions of the image divided by the DPI/PPI determine the size of the print.

 

For 14 x 11 inch prints printed at 300 DPI/PPI you would want 4200 x 3300 pixel wide by pixel high images.

 

4200/300 = 14

 

3300/300 = 11

 

You would resize and crop to those dimensions.

[jgaines]

<p>Most people will assume you have an photo editor by Adobe. Either Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. You have not indicated the type of editor you have. <br>

I would google the term "printing photos" and look at some articles on the subject.<br>

Here is a starting point that will give you some information.<br>

<a href="http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/f/pixelsprint.htm">http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/f/pixelsprint.htm</a></p>

<p>there are some related articles on at the bottom of the article that also helps.</p>

<p>Jim</p>

 

[James G. Dainis]

Since a small pixel looks like a dot, many people call it a dot and refer to dots per inch (DPI) rather than pixels per inch (PPI). PPI is correct unless one is referring to the actual ink dots that a printer spits out per inch. Still I see DPI used in all sorts of places in which there is no ink involved, on image files, scanners and printers where you cannot change the set nozzle spray. Doing the math using DPI to determine an image size makes no sense.

 

If an image is 3000 pixels wide, how wide would the print be if printed at 300 dots per inch (DPI)?

 

3000 pixels/300 dots per inch = 10 pixel.inch/dot (No tags cancel out)

 

Huh? Let's try that again using the correct term pixels per inch PPI.

 

 

3000 pixels/300 pixels per inch = 10 inch (Pixel tag cancels out in numerator and denominator and you are left with only the inch tag.)

 

That makes sense.

 

I use DPI/PPI because I don't know if a person's image editor, scanner or printer uses the correct term PPI or if it uses the incorrect term DPI. (The only way I know to change the DPI, or ink dots that a printer will put out is to change the ink spray nozzle. That wouldn't affect the size of the print anyway, )

[jenkins]

<p>Thanks for these explanations that is pretty clear, i am using CS4 James but i am going to get it printed at a digital printers, not do it at home.</p>

[James G. Dainis]

Most likely they would print at 300 PPI so you would want to submit a 4200 x 3300 image to get the 14 x 11 inch print. If they were to print at 200 PPI then they would scale the 4200 x 3300 image down to get a 14 x 11 inch print anyway.

[andrewg_ny]

<p>Figure out how you're going to crop the image; if you shoot a D-SLR your camera probably produced an image in 3:2 (or 4:3 for Olympus or Panasonic) aspect ratio. You either need to crop this to 14:11 ratio or print a bit smaller and plan for matting.</p>

<p>When you use the crop tool in Photoshop you can constrain it to the dimensions you want e.g. 11x14 (on the Options palette) and also enter a target resolution, e.g. something in the 200-300dpi range though I'm not sure you have quite as much control over the resize parameters when compared to resizing the image using other parameters.</p>