Resizing!!??

[kimberley]

Okay after I learned how to resize pictures for postin gon the forum and saw how beautiful they looked whenI did this.

How do you guys resize your photos, when editing and printing, what setting do you use.

For example, Im sure Im doing it wrong seeing how much better mine came out after I applied the tchnique you guys showed me.

I open the image crop it to 5x7 then do my processing,

do you guys reset the resolution when resizing?

If so how do you do this?

Thanks Kimberley

[CKing]

I usually try to get my resolution to 300 ppi when I resize in Photoshop. The best way to keep the resolution high is to crop as little as possible. That way you can size it down and keep the resolution this high.

[srwatters]

First we need to know what the actual pixel count is for the original image. I'll use my D70 as and example. It's a 6MP body that yeilds images that are 2000x3008 pixels. Now let's say I want to print a 4x6 image at 300 dpi (pretty standard for printers). That means I need to have the final image be 1200x1800. Steps are:

Go to image->image size
deselect the check box for resample
change the image width to 6" (the height will automatically change as will the resolution)
reselect the resample box
change the resolution to 300
select bicubic sharper (for down sizing resolution)
click on OK and you're done.

If you are going the other way to print bigger, then choose bicubic smoother as the method. You might want to do a little USM after that if the image softens too much.

Let me know if that doesn't do what you are looking for.

[suzyjazz]

I pretty much follow the same process as srwatters, except that I normally leave the Resample checkbox checked to "throw away" pixels when I downsize. When I open my Canon raw images, PhotoShop Elements displays them at 240 dpi. I leave it alone because I most often print 4x6 and I think it is sufficient. I crop to the correct aspect ratio if needed and then resize the dimensions for 4x6, 5x7, or whatever. Then sharpen.

Now that I have a 20D I have more pixels to play with and even if I crop, perhaps I would still have room to increase the resoution to 300 and then resize the width and height dimensions as necessary.

[David Price]

I think we need to make this thread a stickie, or at least Scott and Suzy's instruction.

Thank y'all for this guidence.
~dp