New Epson R2880 Printer>PSCS3

redhalton

Hi

I just picked up a new Epson R2280 printer. Iuse PS CS3 and have since its release. My immediate problem is I don't understand the relationship between the cropping in PS to print size.

Last night I began experimenting with the new printer (I have a long way to go)

All of my images are processed in 'Raw' and the saved as 'jpeg' with no reduction in size. If this needs to be modified, let me know.

When I began last night I opened one of these images in PS, set my crop size to 8 x 10" and got a cropping box which I assume represents the print size ( 8 x 10) all seems well.

Now I want to print 13 x 19". Do I set my crop size to 13 x 19" and crop the same?

I guess what I'm looking for is someone who is up on all this stuff to give me some tips on their personal workflow with respect to printing form PS to a desk-top printer.

I've read reams of articles and done a few tuts, but I'm still confused and can't get my brain wrapped around the process--I know it will come, but in the meantime, I just need that light kick in the ass to get going ;-))

Thanks
Bob

redhalton

Well I guess no one wants to get involved--can't say I blame you ;-))

I played around for a couple more hours last night, watch a dozen or so short flicks on youtube PS printing, read 'dgrin' loaded the Epson .icc profiles and managed to get some really decent 8.5 x 11 prints.

I guess I was heading down the wrong path with respect to the cropping tool in PS--it is becoming clearer to me the image print size/resolution is all adjusted in PS image size menu...maybe(?)

In any reply to this post I'm not looking for any deep and technical explanation of resolution/pixels/printer drivers/etc (I'll figure that out)--really all I'm looking for is whether I'm heading in the right direction and a short study on how you print to a desktop printer from PS CS3.

Do you do all your print size in the CS3 image size menu?
Do you use the crop tool first and then the image size menu?
Do you do something totally different?

Thanks..

redhalton wrote:

Hi

I just picked up a new Epson R2280 printer. Iuse PS CS3 and have since its release. My immediate problem is I don't understand the relationship between the cropping in PS to print size.

Last night I began experimenting with the new printer (I have a long way to go)

All of my images are processed in 'Raw' and the saved as 'jpeg' with no reduction in size. If this needs to be modified, let me know.

When I began last night I opened one of these images in PS, set my crop size to 8 x 10" and got a cropping box which I assume represents the print size ( 8 x 10) all seems well.

Now I want to print 13 x 19". Do I set my crop size to 13 x 19" and crop the same?

I guess what I'm looking for is someone who is up on all this stuff to give me some tips on their personal workflow with respect to printing form PS to a desk-top printer.

I've read reams of articles and done a few tuts, but I'm still confused and can't get my brain wrapped around the process--I know it will come, but in the meantime, I just need that light kick in the ass to get going ;-))

Thanks
Bob

arodney

Crop (if proportions are not what you want) and tell Photoshop you want a 13x19, and as long as the resolution of the file falls within 180-480ppi, just send it off to the printer. IOW, all Photoshop "cares about" is the overall size (NOT the PPI). The printer will handle this. But the lower limits should not fall below 180ppi or above 480. So 13x19@345 or 13X19@261 (or any such value between 180-480) will be fine. You can see the size in Image Size dialog.

colourbox

If the proportions are already correct for the mat or frame I'm sticking the print in, I use Image Size. If the proportions are not correct, I use Crop with the options bar set to the needed dimensions and resolution.

Though, I rarely make a final print from the original file. I use Image/Duplicate so that I can tailor an image for specific printing conditions without ruining the original. For example if I need to crop to 8x10, a normal SLR image is longer than that so something must get cut off. I don't want to lose parts of my original permanently, so I crop a flattened duplicate. I also don't want to resample the original permanently so if that is necessary I resample the duplicate to the optimal output resolution.

redhalton

Thank you Andrew--these few sentences cleared up a lot of confusion.

arodney wrote:

Crop (if proportions are not what you want) and tell Photoshop you want a 13x19, and as long as the resolution of the file falls within 180-480ppi, just send it off to the printer. IOW, all Photoshop "cares about" is the overall size (NOT the PPI). The printer will handle this. But the lower limits should not fall below 180ppi or above 480. So 13x19@345 or 13X19@261 (or any such value between 180-480) will be fine. You can see the size in Image Size dialog.

redhalton

Thank you ColourBox...my confidence level has skyrockeded (don't know if this is a word..but you know what I mean)

colourbox wrote:

If the proportions are already correct for the mat or frame I'm sticking the print in, I use Image Size. If the proportions are not correct, I use Crop with the options bar set to the needed dimensions and resolution.

Though, I rarely make a final print from the original file. I use Image/Duplicate so that I can tailor an image for specific printing conditions without ruining the original. For example if I need to crop to 8x10, a normal SLR image is longer than that so something must get cut off. I don't want to lose parts of my original permanently, so I crop a flattened duplicate. I also don't want to resample the original permanently so if that is necessary I resample the duplicate to the optimal output resolution.