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 11/10/2007 03:34:51 PM · #1
Howdy DPC'ers.

I feel I'm losing quality from the time my shot leaves the PC to when I take it in for printing.

Most recently I have been shooting a lot of soccer photos and I'm just not happy with the print quality.

Can some of you give me tips for how I should handle/process my photos from the camera through Photoshop. I shoot mostly jpg and prefer 4x6s. What dpi should I be processing to? Does it matter when in the processing you size down the image and increase the dpi?

I seem to recall before that whenever increasing the ppi to 300 from 72, the pic gets soft. Am I incorrect?

Any thoughts are very much appreciated.

Thanks

Jeff

Message edited by author 2007-11-10 15:43:57.
 11/10/2007 03:59:58 PM · #2
Looking at things a bit more closely, is it best to leave the quality of the pic from the camera untouched and uncheck the "resample" box to size it down for printing?
 11/10/2007 04:26:02 PM · #3
My question to you is ... what is it about the print quality that you are not happy with? (colors, sharpness, etc)

As far as DPI is concerned, all that really matters is the final image resolution. The DPI merely instructs whatever device is displaying it how large the image should be. So DPI is like a "divisor". The lower the number, the bigger the image, the larger the number, the smaller the image.

Example: Let's say you have an 1800x1200 pixel image. At 72dpi, you either need a monitor that is 25" wide by 17" tall to view the whole thing at once, or you're going to have to scroll around a bit. If you print that image at 300 dpi, it will come out to 6" by 4". You could also print it at 150 dpi which would make it 12" by 8".

In terms of print quality ... generally the higher the DPI the better (though some would limit that dpi to a maximum of 300 dpi for prints and suggest a minimum size of about 240). I say ... your mileage may vary.

I took some family pictures last year. Some were shot vertical, some horizontal. The family picked an image that was shot vertically but asked to crop it horizontally for a 16x20" print. I was terrified. That would mean approximately 110 dpi for the final print. I went ahead with it, printed it on canvas (which helps hide defects and missing detail) and it looked perfect!

As to your question about leaving the pic untouched ... that is what my general recommendation is. You will hear a lot of other people telling you to size your image to 240, to 300, or whatever. But my theory is ... any time you are up-sizing the image, the computer is having to "invent" pixels that were never there. Any time you down size the image, you are throwing away pixels. So if you do it at all, make sure it's your last step.

The other reason why I don't care for up or down sizing the image is ... unless you know the exact resolution that your printer is using, the image has still ONE MORE transformation to go through before it turns into an image on paper. So the printer driver will either up or down size the image too.


11/10/2007 04:53:13 PM · #4
Originally posted by Hoser:


I seem to recall before that whenever increasing the ppi to 300 from 72, the pic gets soft. Am I incorrect?

Jeff


Understanding Resolution

I get an impression that you may not understand the 'resolution' issue. A 4x6 created by your 20d should have more than enough pixels for printing without having to modify the resolution at all.
 11/10/2007 11:10:42 PM · #5
I usually save a copy of my prints in photoshop 7.0 just select save as then select copy, change size to 4x6 at 150 dpi. Anything over 8x10 I save as 300dpi. hope this helps psart
 11/11/2007 11:36:22 AM · #6
Thanks all. I do understand resolution, or at least thought I did.

When I bring in the JPGs from my camera, they come in at the size of 32x48 inches and 72 dpi. I post process them, yada yada yada and then usually go to size them down to 4x6 or so. At the same time I also choose 300 ppi for printing. As soon as I do that, the pics go from being sharp to soft. I'm not sure if it is because I have USM'd them BEFORE going to 300 ppi or what ... but they definitely go soft.

I did some reading and found that one recommendation is to bring in the pic from the camera, and then immediately resize it to 4x6 (or whatever) but by deselecting the "resample" box so that way all the proportions are kept and none of the pixels are tossed out (or added). When I do that, it works wonderfully for printing but the ppi usually moves to about 550 ... which makes for a HUGE image.

Maybe I should try saving it off to 300 ppi and resizing it FIRST, before doing any pp'ing .... I can't say that I have ever tried that strangely enough.

Thanks.

J
 11/11/2007 12:15:37 PM · #7
Originally posted by Hoser:
I did some reading and found that one recommendation is to bring in the pic from the camera, and then immediately resize it to 4x6 (or whatever) but by deselecting the "resample" box so that way all the proportions are kept and none of the pixels are tossed out (or added). When I do that, it works wonderfully for printing but the ppi usually moves to about 550 ... which makes for a HUGE image.


I dunno about doing an "immediate resize" (unless you truly know the ultimate destination for the image right from the beginning). But I agree about turning off the resample (perhaps I wasn't clear about that up above). The more times you let the software and/or printer resample, the lower the quality will be.

And again... the DPI or PPI number ... is meaningless. Ignore it. All it does is describe, to the output device, how dense the pixels should be. The image (if you aren't changing the resolution) stays the same no matter what DPI/PPI you use.

Also, your comment that changing the DPI from 72 to 550 makes the image huge ... is the exact opposite of what really happens. Again, the DPI/PPI is a divisor. The bigger the number, the smaller the image.

Referring back to my previous example: Take a 1200x1800 pixel image. If you look at it as a 300 dpi image, it equates to a 4x6" print. If you were to print that same image at 600 dpi it would be only 2x3" in size!

Message edited by author 2007-11-11 12:16:03.
 11/11/2007 12:29:11 PM · #8
It is critical to understand the difference between resizing and resampling. Re-reading the posted tutorial on resampling might help. There also two specific tutorials on Resizing pictures to standard print sizes and on DPC Prints.
 11/11/2007 01:15:10 PM · #9
Check this out
 11/11/2007 02:45:33 PM · #10
do you manually resize the photo before you print?
what i find best is, leave it as large as possible and if its a 4x6 then make the large dimensions 16x24, when printed it will be the correct size in equivalant, the photo will be shrunk as the high quality rather mushing all the information into a 4x6 and loosing alot of quality, thats how i do my printing at least, and if i need to make room, ill box select an edge of the image and strech it to size, of course keep this to areas that are not as noticable like grass, or not with the main subject in them.
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