Is It Really Better to Resize Image and Canvas Before Printing???????

Is it better to resize the image and canvas before printing? It may sound like a dumb question but it seems to me, that if I resize the image and canvas in Photoshop:

1) If I print the photo on my own printer, the printer's software will essentially be resampling the photo data anyway (even if I correctly resize image and canvas to match printer resolution and photo paper size),

or

2) If I take the photo to a commercial printer, that printer's software will resample the photo anyway AND the person processing the photo will resample it (adjusting brightness, color, etc.).
It would seem to me that one would be better off just letting the printer software resize the image and canvas of the photo (and therefore skip at least one unnecessary resampling which would needlessly decrease the quality of the photo). Thanks for any opinions either way.

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 03:26:16 -0400, wrote:

Is it better to resize the image and canvas before printing? It may sound like a dumb question but it seems to me, that if I resize the image and canvas in Photoshop:

1) If I print the photo on my own printer, the printer's software will essentially be resampling the photo data anyway (even if I correctly resize image and canvas to match printer resolution and photo paper size),
or

2) If I take the photo to a commercial printer, that printer's software will resample the photo anyway AND the person processing the photo will resample it (adjusting brightness, color, etc.).
It would seem to me that one would be better off just letting the printer software resize the image and canvas of the photo (and therefore skip at least one unnecessary resampling which would needlessly decrease the quality of the photo). Thanks for any opinions either way.

I agree with your conclusions for most users. Unless you spend a significant part of your life investigating the true native resolution of the commercial printer and extensively testing those findings, you are better off letting the printer software take care of it.

There are too many variables to make this a simple job. Take for example a commercial wet printer who advertises his machines at 400ppi. Now you want a 6x4 so you do a 'perfect' high quality resample in Photoshop to make the image 2400x1600 pixels and send it to them. Problem: They overscan when they print it, so the actual image size being printed is 6.2"x4.15" (a guess, some extensive tests would need to be done to find out) which means it got resampled anyway. Damn - a double resample - not good. And then they trim it back to 6x4.

For home printing, the native driver resolutions are known for Epson and Canon printers and you have full control of the real print size, but personally I still don't bother doing it manually in photoshop.

--
Owamanga!
http://www.pbase.com/owamanga

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Is it better to resize the image and canvas before printing? It may sound like a dumb question but it seems to me, that if I resize the image and canvas in Photoshop:

1) If I print the photo on my own printer, the printer's software will essentially be resampling the photo data anyway (even if I correctly resize image and canvas to match printer resolution and photo paper size),
or

2) If I take the photo to a commercial printer, that printer's software will resample the photo anyway AND the person processing the photo will resample it (adjusting brightness, color, etc.).
It would seem to me that one would be better off just letting the printer software resize the image and canvas of the photo (and therefore skip at least one unnecessary resampling which would needlessly decrease the quality of the photo). Thanks for any opinions either way.

you can resize without sampling too
just uncheck it
choose print dimensions
resolution will adapt to whatever it will be