Preparing Your Images for Print

In this video tutorial, Karl talks to you about preparing your images for display print and runs you through various stages including screen calibration and preparation of your image in Photoshop.

Comments

  1. What about a regular size print or for a brochure for example, where the images are much smaller? Would it be enough simply to resize as for the web? so 2500pix on long edge, or is there a way to calculate the best image size based on how large you want to print the image? And even for a small print is better to leave it in RGB? Thank you!

    1. Hi Simona, images in brochures are printed with a resolution of 300pixels per inch, so a 3600 pixel image on the long edge is suitable for a full page on a standard magazine size on the vertical and a 4500pixel image is suited to a double page spread. You can use 300 pixels per inch as an average for calculating image print size or for bigger prints you can base it on about 150-200pixels per inch. You can also now use software like Photoshops Super Resolution or Topaz Gigapixel to enlarge your images using AI and provide very impressive results.

  3. That makes sense. Thanks for pointing out the scientifics of the unsharp mask re changing relative contrast. That helps me understand what’s going on under the hood and will aid me with adjustments.

  4. I understand the first technique for adding ‘sharpness’ using the unsharp mask. But when you move on to adding more contrast, also using the unsharp mask tool, won’t those settings then overwrite the original unsharp mask setting that you used to sharpen the image? Or do you use two layers, one for sharpness and another for contrast? How does that work?

    1. Hi Nigel, no they don’t overwrite they simply add, even if I used the same settings you would notice it ‘sharpen’ slightly more. But and this is very very important, remember that sharpening isn’t sharpening, that is actually impossible as there are no extra pixels. All it is doing is changing relative contrast between adjoining pixels in key places to enhance the appearance of sharpening. On my second adjustment with my different settings I’m changing contrast in a different way and different areas of the image.

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