Image Sizing

[ncb1323]

Hi there,

Can someone please explain the proper way to size your images for printing? I have read up on it and am totally confused. Thanks for the help.

[Doug Sundseth]

An 8x10 is a different shape than a 5x7 or a 6x9, so first crop to the correct aspect ratio. If you're printing for yourself, set the final size in the crop so you don't have to muck around with the printer to get the right size.

Export to the file format that your printer likes. JPG is normally a fine choice.

You don't normally need to reduce the resolution, and there's not much point in trying to increase the resolution in most cases, so leave the dpi setting blank when cropping.

[mshockley]

I've only one thing to add to what Doug said, as I learned this the hard way!

The first thing I do is save my final edited file as it is, then when I know what sizes I need to print for a customer order I crop to size as Doug explained. But he is most correct when he says the aspect ratios are different and you can easily see this if you open a file and crop it to 5x7, save it, then undo the crop and crop it to 8x10 for example, then save that one. This way you always have a copy of the original un-cropped file to work with.

[Doug Sundseth]

What she said.

Whenever you open a file to edit with something that has the potential to be destructive, you should first save it as a copy with a new name. As soon as you're finished editing, save as a copy with another name. Then save each crop as yet another name.

Disk space is cheap. And if you save over the original or the version you spent an hour editing, all that stuff is gone forever.

Change the filename of your active copy first.