cs5 photograph size wrong?

oakfieldphotography.com

Seems like i am missing something here but when i save a photograph to say a width of 735 pixels and a height of 503 pixels why does the image size shown in cs5 tell me that it is 2.62 inches wide and 1.548 inches high and i can print a the image 6 inch by 4 inch?????? The resolution is 325 pixels/inch
Just curious to know why this is shown in cs5 when in reality its much larger. I know this is an endless debate all over the internet but is there a real reason cs5 does this.

Regards
Patrick.:D

digismile

Patrick,

It's just math. Your absolute picture size as stated is 735 pixels wide. This won't change for printing, you still only have 735 pixels across. What does change is how many pixels are available for each inch of printed output. Ideally, a good quality print needs somewhere between an approx. range of 240 ppi to 300 ppi.

So what Photoshop is telling you is what the final printed size will be for any given print resolution. So, if you print at 300 dpi, the final printed size will be just 2.45 inches wide (735/300). Yes, you can print a 4 x 6 inch print, but you won't be getting very good output, since you only have enough pixels for 735/6 or 122.5 pixels per inch, about half the minimum resolution.

Photoshop shows it, because it helps with the decision regarding a photo's ideal printing size. With some of the very large files from current DSLR's, you actually have more information that the printer is able to output for a small 4 x 6 print, so in cases like this, you could opt to downsize the photo for a small print.

In the end, the best size is a function of the quality of the photo, the type of printer being used, etc. In general I still like to use the 300 dpi rule, so for an 8 x 10 print in landscape, I would want my picture to be 10 x 300 or 3000 pixels on the long side.

Hope this makes sense,

colourbox

oakfieldphotography.com wrote: »

a width of 735 pixels and a height of 503 pixels why does the image size shown in cs5 tell me that it is 2.62 inches wide and 1.548 inches high and i can print a the image 6 inch by 4 inch?????? The resolution is 325 pixels/inch
Just curious to know why this is shown in cs5 when in reality its much larger.

What Photoshop reports is the resolution in the image file itself as 325 pixels per inch at 2.62 inches wide and 1.548 inches high. Sure, you can print it bigger, but the resolution must drop as digismile did the math on (unless you resample, which is another can of worms). If you want to see this happen, go into the Print box, uncheck Scale to Fit Media, and type in 6x4 inches. The "Print Resolution" listed there should drop to 122 ppi to reflect your stretching out of the image pixels.

oakfieldphotography.com

digismile wrote: »

Patrick,

It's just math. Your absolute picture size as stated is 735 pixels wide. This won't change for printing, you still only have 735 pixels across. What does change is how many pixels are available for each inch of printed output. Ideally, a good quality print needs somewhere between an approx. range of 240 ppi to 300 ppi.

So what Photoshop is telling you is what the final printed size will be for any given print resolution. So, if you print at 300 dpi, the final printed size will be just 2.45 inches wide (735/300). Yes, you can print a 4 x 6 inch print, but you won't be getting very good output, since you only have enough pixels for 735/6 or 122.5 pixels per inch, about half the minimum resolution.

Photoshop shows it, because it helps with the decision regarding a photo's ideal printing size. With some of the very large files from current DSLR's, you actually have more information that the printer is able to output for a small 4 x 6 print, so in cases like this, you could opt to downsize the photo for a small print.

In the end, the best size is a function of the quality of the photo, the type of printer being used, etc. In general I still like to use the 300 dpi rule, so for an 8 x 10 print in landscape, I would want my picture to be 10 x 300 or 3000 pixels on the long side.

Hope this makes sense,

Seems like i entered this arena at an age where maths was left at the school gate years ago. Thanks for your responce. I did one print at 6 by 4 inch and it came out perfect. I did not see any degredation in quality. I got a bit of a shock when i downloaded one of my pictures from flickr and was able to print out a good quality picture on my Epson Stylus Photo R360. I do have a logo stamped in one corner but felt that if anyone wanted they could download away at them even though i have my settings correct in Flickr.
So i guess the question is, Given that i am using a 5D mk2, my file sizes are large. For uploading to the internet, what should my pixel size in cs5 be set to for batch operations? I dont want to compromise the look of my pictures online but i dont want to leave it to some smart kid to start downloading them for sale either? Am i getting paronoid?

Regards
Patrick