Jump to content

Photo Resolution


Recommended Posts

Good morning:

 

I am hoping someone might clarify something for me.

 

I use Blurb to print my layouts in an annual photobook. When I received the first printed book, I noticed that the print quality of only the photos I used in the layouts was awful. When I contacted customer service, the rep asked me what the resolution of my photos was. I told her it was 72. She suggested resizing the photos to 300 resolution and to redoing the book. The print quality of the resized photos was perfect. I had created that book using Paint Shop Pro.

 

When I drag an un-resized photo into a layer Elements 11, which I now use, it appears that the resolution is 300, which is what the setting for the background layer is. Does anyone know if I can stop resizing all the photos before using them in my layouts?

 

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

 

Barbara

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I think that dragged in photos assume the resolution of the PSE page, but I'm not sure. I know that to be true for photos you import with the "place" option in the file menu. Probably your best tactic is to check the resolution of each imported photo until you're confident that it's the right size.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... the rep asked me what the resolution of my photos was. I told her it was 72. She suggested resizing the photos to 300 resolution and to redoing the book. The print quality of the resized photos was perfect.

Most people misunderstand resolution. You simply want high resolution images for print purposes and low resolution images for web display. High resolution photos have MILLIONS and MILLIONS of pixels. If you check your photo's properties, you will see the pixel dimensions e.g. 3072 pixels x 4608 pixels which is just over 14 million pixels.

 

On the other hand, the scrapbook pages in the Scrapgirl galleries are 600 x 600 which is only 360,000 pixels, or 0.36 million pixels. You can absolutely print them at 300 dpi - the problem is that there aren't that many dots (pixels) so at 300 dpi, you can get a nice sharp 2 inch by 2 inch print.

 

600 pixels wide divided by 300 pixels per inch gives you 2 inches wide

 

ALL digital photos taken by digital cameras are "72 dpi" - this is meaningless. Look at the pixel dimensions. As long as you have enough pixels, you will get a sharp print. Divide the number of pixels wide and the number of pixels high by 300 and that will give you inches.

 

3072 pixels x 4608 pixels ---> 10.24 inches by 15.36 inches. This means I can print my file up to size 10.24 x 15.36. However, if I want to print it as a 36 inch tall poster, it will be fuzzy.

 

4608 pixels divided by 36 inches = 128 pixels per inch which is not high enough for a sharp print.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's very helpful to understand the difference between "resizing" and "resampling".

 

Resizing: Take the number of pixels in the image and spread them out (to print over a larger area) or pack them in tighter (to print in a smaller area). The file size stays the same.

 

Resample: Remove pixels. The image size and the file size gets smaller. This is what we all do when we create a JPG version of our pages for uploading to the gallery. Once you remove pixels, you can't get them back. You have to go back to the original, unresampled image.

 

Barb, in your first photobook, you must have used resampled photos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You're welcome, MariJ.

 

More about resizing: An image has a finite number of pixels. The bigger you want to print it, the more you have to spread the pixels out. This creates blanks between the pixels which results in blurry prints. In other words, as the print size goes up, the dots per inch goes down. The more pixels you start with, the more you can enlarge the print before it starts to get blurry.

 

Push the pixels in tightly (i.e. 300 dpi) and the image file prints sharp; spread the pixels out (e.g. 100 dpi) and it prints blurry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Linda:

 

Thanks for the explanations. I think I knew a lot of that already. In my first book, I simply dragged the photo, without resizing or resampling, into the background layer and then resized the photo (by clicking on the corners and dragging it inward) to use in the layout. That resulted in the poor print quality of just the photos. In the "do over" book, I first resized the photos, which resulted in a smaller print size as you explained, but the print quality of the photos was excellent. I was using Corel's Paint Shop Pro for my editing program at the time. Maybe the print issue I had had something to do with Paint Shop Pro.

 

Since I've switched editing programs to PSE 11, I'm wondering if I have to take that extra first step to resize the photos before placing in a layout or whether I can just drag my photo with it's tons of pixels into the layout and adjust the size by using the Move tool. I would hate to redo a 300 page photobook. .

 

Barbara

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hi, Barbara

 

I usually do resize photos before dragging into a layout. But I just ran an experiment; I opened a cell phone image that was 72 dpi, 3264 x 2445 pixels, and about 45 x 34 inches. Then I dragged it onto a new document, 12 x 12 at 300 dpi. To measure the photo I had to crop the transparent base layer; otherwise I just got its measurements. The dragged photo was 300 dpi, 3268 x 2445 pixels, and about 11 x 8 inches, without doing any resizing. It can still be adjusted with the Move tool.

 

So it seems that either approach will work, but just dragging seems simpler. Hope this helps!

 

Jo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I drag an un-resized photo into a layer Elements 11, which I now use, it appears that the resolution is 300, which is what the setting for the background layer is. Does anyone know if I can stop resizing all the photos before using them in my layouts?

In PSE, you can simply drag your high resolution photos onto your 12x12, 300 dpi canvas. The program automatically fits the photo's pixels in as 300 dpi, as Jo described above.

 

(A low resolution photo would appear on the canvas as a very small rectangle which is totally OK, if that is the size you want it printed at. Enlarging it would result in blurriness, although for the purpose of blending it into the background, I find using low resolution photos OK.)

 

I am shocked that Paint Shop Pro degraded your high res photos when you dragged them onto a canvas and resized them. I am not familiar with that program, but I understand it is a very good product. If I were to guess at an explanation I would say that the algorithm for resizing via dragging, is really outdated. Reminds me of Adobe PhotoDeluxe from 20 years ago, where resizing using the type-in-new-dimensions method worked beautifully, but the drag-in-the-sides method produced a degraded result.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you all for sharing your information. After having to redo close to 300 layouts, I had been very reluctant to experiment by not resizing the photos before dragging them into a PSE 11 layer. BTW, I've not regretted changing from Paint Shop Pro (in spite of the learning curve) to Elements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...