What’s it say in Image Size? What are the pixel dimensions, the ppi and the physical dimensions? Go by that, not the image on your screen.
I’m betting low res.
I’m not sure but I am guessing that the print size in Photoshop probably assumes a specific screen resolution when it draws the rulers and the print size preview. There’s no adjustment for it, so it’s probably unlikely that a monitor would match the fixed resolution used to calculate the print size. (Translation: I don’t think Print Size is going to be true on most monitors.)
Which PowerBook G4 are you using? For example, I have a 15". The screen is 12.75 inches wide, and it’s set to the default setting of 1280×854 pixels. 1280/12.75=100.39, or 100.39 pixels per inch.
If Photoshop assumes that the screen is 72 pixels per inch when your screen is actually 100 ppi, the Print Size and the rulers will appear much smaller than they really are. Since that’s what’s happening, I think the problem is that while Photoshop can know the size it’s supposed to print at, Photoshop doesn’t currently have a way of knowing the actual real-world size of the screen.
If Photoshop assumes 72 ppi for the screen, then to make Photoshop’s rulers accurate on your 12.75-inch-wide screen, you would need to have a way of setting the monitor resolution so that it was 918 pixels wide (that’s 12.75 inches times 72 ppi). But there is no monitor setting that matches that.
(Now nobody’s going to believe that I hate math…)
I think you are both right. I’ve also got a 15′ screen set to 1280×854 pixels–I even tried changing this setting before, thinking it might help, but of course it didn’t and everything looked fuzzy. Anyway, I took my disk with the design to a printer and watched them open the file in Photoshop on their pc, and when they looked at print size it appeared perfect. I guess I was just thinking too literally as far as the print size view goes. I’ll see how things go when I get a new printer soon. It’s a relief that someone out there does the math for those of us who are numerically challenged. Thanks for the help.
So the printer might be running a CRT monitor with a resolution setting that just happens to line up pretty well with whatever resolution Photoshop assumes. On a CRT, not only can you can choose from more resolutions, but you can also adjust the analog monitor controls to change the size of the image itself. This means it’s easier to set a CRT so that one inch on your software rulers matches one inch in real life.
There are certain monitor resolution that are considered WYSIWYG, that is: what you see is what you get.
In the old 13" monitors it is 640x 480
in a 17" monitor it is 832×624
in a 19" it is 1024×768
It is at this resolution that 1" in your document equals (approximately) 1" on screen.
View-at-Print-Size always shows my images at 24% but 27% is what I need for my monitor.
I have always wondered what Preferences/Units & Rulers/Screen resolution actually DOES!
I assumed that it was there to address this problem but it doesn’t seem to affect the on-screen appearance of the rulers in any wayregardless of how I set it.
