size for printing advice please

Shrilly, let’s back up a little and maybe we can help you get it resized properly. It sounds as though you should be able to do some adjustments through manipulating the resolution, but I’m not sure. Also remember that each image has an "aspect ratio", which means that not all will resize to what we consider the perfect print size without some cropping. The trick is to find the right balance.

What size and resolution is your original image? I’m assuming this is a picture you took with a digital camera, right? And you’re working with it in one of the non-lossy formats, such as PSD or TIFF?

Hi Beth,
The picture at the moment is in .tif I took it on my Casio QV3500ex in Portrait mode. its actual size is 1260 by 1680 pixels as I changed the resolution from the exported 72 ppi. to 300 ppi its size in cm is 10.67 by 14.22. So I am now hoping that it will print to near enough the correct size. But before I do that would I be better cropping it. I kept constrain proportions as it looked a bit weird if I didn’t do that.
I have some leeway on the left and at the bottom as it is a head and shoulders of my grandson. so would it be best to crop it then resize it again.

Between posting my request I played around with it a bit from the original sizes because I changed the resolution.
[I wish I knew why the res changes when I export it from iPhoto but that’s a question for apple I think]
The inside dimensions of the frame are 9cm by 14 cm. So that is the minimum printed area. I would like it a little larger, the actual paper size is 10.2 by 15.2
I hope this is more helpful and that I havent confused you with all the settings.

Kind thoughts
shrilly.

shrilly, I’ll explain how I’d do this, although somebody else might weigh in with a different method. The nice thing about Elements is that there’s usually more than one way to achieve the same result. If you get more than one set of instructions, pick the one that makes the most sense to you.

First, you are working on a copy, right?! That’s always rule number two – rule number one being to always switch to a non-lossy format before "playing", which you’ve already done.

Second, keep in mind that 300ppi is a nice target number, but good prints can be made using something less. I find 240 to 260ppi still gives me a good print in most situations.

Now, since you have a little bit of image that can be cropped off, but not a whole lot, go back to adjusting the resolution until you get the image big enough to tolerate the cropping needed to hit your target size. If it’s still an acceptable resolution (and I’m sure it will be), go for it.

The way I "test" for this is to select my Rectangular Marquee Tool, set it to "Fixed Size" in the Option Bar, and type in the dimensions that I want the final width and length of my cropped image to be.

Next, in Image>Resize, make an adjustment to the size of your picture by changing the resolution, without any Resampling.

Now, click on the resized image with your Rectagular Marquee Tool. You’ll get those famous marching ants, and by clicking anywhere inside the selected area, you can move the selection around and check to be sure you’re capturing the part of the image you want.

If it’s not quite big enough, deselect (Command D) and go back to the Image Resize box and reduce the resolution a little bit. Now check again and see if you can select what you’re after.

The first couple of times you do this, it seems really awkward, but after a while you’ll be able to judge very quickly what resolution will bring you closest to the result you want.

In answer to your specific question, in most situations, you’ll want to do your resolution resizing first, and then crop down to the dimension you’re after, rather than cropping first. General rule of thumb:

Downsampling (without resampling) merely compacts the pixels in an image, causing no harm to the quality of the image.

Upsampling (without resampling) stretches the available pixels to cover a larger area. Within limits, this can work very nicely.

Upsampling (using resampling) causes the software to "make up" pixels not present in the original camera shot through the use of mysterious mathematical equations. We usually try to avoid upwards resampling, although it can be done quite nicely in some situations if done incrementally.

And by now you’ve had more time to experiment. If this has left you more confused than ever, just say so. There are other people on the forum with different techniques that you might find easier to understand or do. Good luck!

"Shrilly Drabble" wrote in message

its actual size is 1260 by 1680 pixels as I changed the
resolution from the exported 72 ppi. to 300 ppi its size in cm is 10.67 by 14.22. So I am now hoping that it will print to near enough the correct size.

IMHO, the best way to print a picture is to forget all about image resolution and don’t edit the image at all. Using the print preview feature in Elements, it is easy enough to simply set the size of the printed image to whatever you want. You can also "crop" by showing the bounding box on the preview image and clicking and dragging the image to wherever you want it on the page (again, in the preview dialog).

If you are printing to paper that’s the size you want the image, then after you’re done printing, you’ve got exactly what you want. If you are printing to a larger sheet, then you still have to trim the piece of paper, but you would’ve had to do that anyway. As Beth says, since the aspect ratio of the current picture is different from that of your desired output, something "has to go". You’ll either wind up trimming in one direction, or allowing some unprinted border in the other.

Remember: the "resolution" stored with the image is nothing more than a "suggestion" as to what size the image might be printed. The real "resolution" of the image is determined solely by the number of pixels in the image (1260 by 1680 in your case) and how large you wind up printing it.

Pretty much any program intended for printed output (including Elements) makes it easy to decide how large the printed image should be without worrying about the "suggestion resolution" stored with the image, nor can the program do any better anyway than simply sending the full image to the printer driver and letting the printer driver handle all the scaling to get it to the right size (which is what happens when you just scale the printout in Element’s print preview feature).

Pete