When is an inch not an inch in PS?

PC
Posted By
Patty_Clarke
Oct 29, 2003
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603
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One of the things I use ps for is to create special event photo memory boxes. I collage all the photos in ps and then take a round or oval box and then do the physical lacquer routine to cover the box with the trimmed ps document.

Anyway, I normally scan the actual lid of the box to use as my template in creating. The template never turned out to be the actual size and I would always have to make adjustments. I figured it was something between scanner, program etc.

Tonight I am making a large round box of 10" diameter. So I set my elipse tool to a fixed measurement of 10" by 10" with no feathering and when I print it out, it actually measures 9 3/8.

Long way around to get to the question, but wanted you to understand the final use of my question.

So why is 10" only 9 3/8"?

EDIT Forgot to say that I am using a document size of tabloid (11×17) in PS and printing with 11×17 paper with printer also set to that document size—so it’s not a matter of "downsizing" to fit.

Patty

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BG
barry_gray
Oct 29, 2003
Patty
I’m betting it is indeed " "downsizing" to fit." If your canvas size is the same as paper size the printer driver is reducing to compensate for margins. Try making canvas size the dimensions of your paper less the margins, i.e if your printer margin is .25" make canvas 10.5" instead of 11."
My Epson has a print maximum check box- that may help reduce your margins as well.
F
Frogiswrong
Oct 29, 2003
I too experience this but I don’t use Photoshop to rip it to the printer. I think that its a problem/feature of the printer and the way it interprets pixels and makes them dot or lines.

wrote in message
One of the things I use ps for is to create special event photo memory
boxes. I collage all the photos in ps and then take a round or oval box and then do the physical lacquer routine to cover the box with the trimmed ps document.
Anyway, I normally scan the actual lid of the box to use as my template in
creating. The template never turned out to be the actual size and I would always have to make adjustments. I figured it was something between scanner, program etc.
Tonight I am making a large round box of 10" diameter. So I set my elipse
tool to a fixed measurement of 10" by 10" with no feathering and when I print it out, it actually measures 9 3/8.
Long way around to get to the question, but wanted you to understand the
final use of my question.
So why is 10" only 9 3/8"?

EDIT Forgot to say that I am using a document size of tabloid (11×17) in
PS and printing with 11×17 paper with printer also set to that document size—so it’s not a matter of "downsizing" to fit.
Patty
PC
Patty_Clarke
Oct 29, 2003
Barry,

You were right! My printer HP1700 has a 1/4 print margin on each side, so I thought that the 10" circle would still leave a 1/2 inch before that would happen.

Thanks buddy.

Patty
P
Phosphor
Oct 29, 2003
"2nd edit–also forgot to say that I used the elipse tool and then filled with paint bucket because I couldn’t figure out how to set a fixed size with the custom circle shape."

With your Ellipse Custom Shape Tool selected, look to the little downward-pointing triangle in the Options Bar—the one near the center of the bar./ That’s where you can set "Constrain", "Fixed Size", etc.
BG
barry_gray
Oct 29, 2003
You are welcome.
JR
John_R_Nielsen
Oct 30, 2003
Maybe you had previously printed something and had scaled it in the printer dialog box, and the scaling was still set there?
CC
Chris_Cox
Oct 30, 2003
Also, many printers are not very precise with their measurements.

On my old laser printer 1 inch printed horizontally was close to 1 inch on the paper, but 1 inch printed vertically was 0.94 inches on the paper.

And you set the circle/ellipse tool to a fixed size using the arrow to the right of the vector tool options.
PC
Patty_Clarke
Oct 30, 2003
I am totally baffled once again. I’ve had a frustrating day. Dog sick–afternoon at the vet and now I have $400 less money in my Adobe CS fund.

Anyway, here’s the deal.

This morning after Barry’s post I simply created an 8 inch elipse to test out his theory and sure enough when printed the circle was 8".

Then when I go to print what I hope will be my final box lid, I am out of the tabloid paper that I need for this, so I use my A3 size.
(I think, no problem because it’s bigger) My printer won’t allow me to print with doc setting of 11×17 when it has A3 in the machine.

Now I create a new document at A3 and I’m back at square one.

Actually I never left square one because my "Barry circle test" was just that–a circle with no photos.

Recap:

1. Start with circle template (thanks Phos–I used the custom circle shape set like you said)

2. I bring in photos that I spend MAJOR time placing in collage fashion with layer masks getting just the right design layout.

3. Then I print. The circle template shows that everything is fine but then I print and the actual document is smaller that what shows on the screen.

I just don’t get it. I know the screen view is making allowances to show the ten inch circle—but wouldn’t it be consistent with the photos?

How in the hech am I ever going to hope for any sort of automation of my process if I don’t have a friggin clue?

Patty 🙁
PC
Patty_Clarke
Oct 30, 2003
I discovered the problem but now I’m not sure what it’s going to do to my overall world yet. (Meaning the other templates that I have set up saved for lots of other projects.)

I decided I would start from the beginning and create a new A3 document and go in and change my measuring prefs to be mm also rather than inches that I always work in.

Here’s where I discovered that there is a New Document Preset Resolution dialog that has screen res at 72 and print at 300. When I changed the preset to 150, the print version matches the screen.

So obviously, this overrides the actual new document set up that I do at 150 res. But I never knew this "master" deal existed, so does it mean that it’s only a problem if I am setting up a template using actual size dimensions versus scanning and using my eye for layout.

Ugh, I have a headache.

Patty
PC
Patty_Clarke
Nov 2, 2003
Reality clicked in– Some computer issues do not warrant the time and effort to figure out– I should have just "visually made the corrections I needed based on the ever faithful eyeball method after my first printing attempt."

There’s something to be said about good old common sense and I let my desire to figure out the computer stuff take over! ugh

Recap: The things that Chris and Phos pointed out about vector measurement etc made sense.

When I went in and changed the preferences to be 150 res than the circle with the photos printed and matched the physical reality.
I finished the 10" circle deal and moved on to complete the last in the series.

Batch processed resizing of photos to 150 res at approx 5 x 4".

1. Scanned the lid of the next box (6" diam) and that became my working document. Created the photo collage from there bringing in the resized photos.–all is well.

2. Created a new document for the sides at letter with 150 res and now I started to drag in the photos that I had resized with the lid batching.

3. Now instead of the photos being consistent with doc size, I had tiny photos Maybe 1.5 – 2 " on the new document.

I understand the size difference when combining different resolutions, but I’m confused because now my initial prefs are 150 res my document is 150 res, my photos are 150 res. Why are the photos smaller than the scanned document I am working on.

I ended up trashing my prefs and now the side document is fine.

Basically, I’m confused with the relationship between the program prefs and doc prefs and if I even need to understand it.

Thoughts anyone?

TIA,

Patty
4. So I go back and reset prefs and start over.
RW
Russell_Williams
Nov 2, 2003

1. The screen=72, print=300 doesn’t override anything in the New dialog. The *only* thing that’s used for is filling in the initial value of the resolution in the New dialog. For example, the letter, legal, tabloid, 4X6, etc. presets in the New dialog are meant for creating documents to be printed, so they get a resolution of whatever the "print resolution" preference is.

The 640X480, 1024X768, etc. presets are for documents meant for screen display, so they get the "screen resolution" preference as their resolution.

In all cases, the only thing the preference does is provide an initial value for the resolution in the dialog box when a preset is selected. You don’t have to use presets in the New dialog at all, or if you use a preset, you can change the resolution before clicking OK. In all cases, the resolution used is whatever appears in the New dialog at the time you click OK.

2. You can’t print an A3 sized document on A3 sized paper unless "scale to fit" is checked, because of the margins. I suspect what happened when you switched from 11X17 to A3 is that you got "scale to fit" checked again.

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