What to do when you are done. PRINTING WITH PHOTOSHOP

Which one should I print? SELECTING AN IMAGE

Selecting an Image It may be tempting to just print out everything you ever make, but is it wise? Printing is expensive. Always choose your prints with an end in mind – what are you going to use it for? The prints you make in here, assuming you do everything correctly, are VERY NICE PRINTS. They are not for stapling to your bedroom wall. Use them for contests, art shows, gifts, or framing and display. Don’t waste your money printing out pictures you took with a digital camera in here. You can print those at a much smaller cost through Snapfish or Shutterfly. Unless it is something you edited and intend for show or a gift, pick something else.

Art Show Prints You are all required to submit at least ONE print for the art show. This image must be cleared by me before printing. You can submit additional prints, but they may not be displayed at the art show. You are guaranteed space for at least ONE. If there is room, I will evaluate the additional submissions and display the best of them. You will need to mount your print on foam core or matt board. I will show you how to do this.

Setting up a file for print. GETTING IT READY

Getting it Ready - Resolution Resolution Remember when I told you to have your files be at least 300ppi if you want to print them? This is where that comes in. It is better to go from too big than from too small. If your image is 72ppi, it will look horrible even if you try to increase the resolution. That is like trying to make something out of nothing – it doesn’t work. Start with 300ppi or higher and it will look much better.

Getting it Ready – Physical Size Check the physical dimensions of your image. Again, better to go from too big to smaller than the other way around. If you are printing on a 8.5” by 11” paper, make sure that your image is that size or larger.

Resolution and Document Size The resolution of this file is 72ppi – too small for quality printing. The Document Size (Physical Size) of the image is an acceptable size for printing on an 8.5” by 11” paper, but no larger.

Getting it Ready – Color Mode We will be learning more about color mode next semester. For now, we will let the printer manage the color settings. If you ever print to a commercial printer, make sure you ask them what color mode they want the file in! It will make a huge difference.

Getting it Ready – Save As AFTER you have done everything on the previous slides, go to File > Save As Select TIFF from the drop down box by “Format” under the File name box. Save the file on your flash drive and/or student drive (your S: drive account)

Get Some Paper Once you have all these steps, you will need to get your printing paper from me. Decide the print size you want and let me know. I will get you ONE piece of paper and deduct the cost of a print from your fee balance. Make note of the type and size of paper you get, you will need to know that for the next steps.

Some more options. THE PRINT INTERFACE

Print Interface – ICC Profile The ICC Profile is a “set of data that characterizes a color input or output device, or a color space, according to standards promulgated by the International Color Consortium” (Wikipedia.org). Basically, it tells your computer how to translate the colors on your screen into the colors that you print. You are not going to worry about this yet, but you should be aware that it exists. We will get into it more next semester.

Soft Proof Soft Proofing gives you a preview of the print according to the ICC profiles you installed. Since we are not installing ICC profiles, this step will not work for you, but if you were to install some you would go to View > Proof Setup > Custom and select the ICC profile for the printer and paper you selected. Make sure you DO check Black Point Compensation and Preview, and DO NOT check Simulate Paper Color or Simulate Black Ink.

The Print Interface

Printer Selection First you need to select what printer you want to use. Trust me, ALWAYS DO THIS FIRST. If you go change the printer later you will lose any other setting changes you made. Next, select Portrait or Landscape printing. If your picture is square, do either. If it is portrait or landscape, choose accordingly. You will need to click on “Page Setup” and select the type of paper you are printing to. Don’t change anything else.

Position Most of the time you will have “Center Image” checked. This is default. If there is a reason you think you need to uncheck it, ask me first.

Print Size NEVER check Scale to Fit Media. NEVER change the image size in the Print Dialogue box. NEVER print something that says “Print Resolution: 72 PPI”. If you need to change the image size, do so in the Image> Image Size dialog box in Photoshop. Make sure to check “Resample Image” if you MUST enlarge an image in Photoshop.

Color Management Until you learn about ICC profiles and we get them setup on the printer computers, you shouldn’t need to change anything in here. Make sure “Document” is selected, as well as “Printer Manages Colors” and “Relative Colorimetric”.

Output Click the dropdown at the top right of the print dialog box to access the output settings. For art show prints you will not need to change anything here.

Print Box After you check all your settings and click “Print” in the previous boxes, you will get a box for the print requestor. Make sure the correct printer is still selected, then click “Preferences”.

Printing Preferences Double check all your settings here: orientation, pages per sheet, paper selection and quality, color settings, etc. Then, click “Advanced”. In here your ICC profile would again come into play. For now, leave this at the default. Again, we will learn more about this next semester.

Printing If you are ABSOLUTELY SURE you have ALL the settings correct, you may start clicking “OK” until everything is a go and the printer starts to spool (make noise). One last note: make sure you loaded the paper in the printer. Works better that way.

Did I do it right? EVALUATING A PRINT

Evaluating a Print Did it print the correct dimensions? Is the entire image displayed, or cut off? Look closely – are the pixels visible? Are the lines clear and precise? Is it blurry or “blocky” looking? Did the colors print as expected?

Evaluating a Print (If you mess up) If your print didn’t turn out as expected, you do not get a free re- do. You will need to pay for another print. Make sure you figure out what you did wrong before trying again. Ask me if you are not sure. The questions on the previous slide should help out a lot with that. Common errors: resolution setting too low document size too low or incorrect wrong paper type selected wrong printer selected