Photoshop Print Size vs. Image on screen

[coasternuts]

When I view my font using "print size", I noticed some aliasing, but if I click the magnifying glass once, the aliasing looks much better.  Even viewing "actual pixels" looks better.

Will the print size show exactly what I'm looking at on the monitor?

Is there a better forum to get answers to Photoshop specific questions?  Should we not ask them here?

Thanks.

[RayB]

You should only rely on how things look when viewed at 100%. Anything else and you are only viewing an approximation of the real image.

You'll also notice that you get significantly less aliasing (usually none actually) if you view at sizes that are halves (?). For example, 50% will look good, 66% will not. 25% looks good, 33% does not.

[coasternuts]

Thanks RayB. 

Does 100% mean View->"Actual Pixels" or View->"Print Size"?  How do I know what % I'm viewing? 

[RayB]

Does 100% mean View->"Actual Pixels" or View->"Print Size"?

[brain21]

Hit (PC) Ctrl+"+" (that is Control & the plus or equal sign) until you see the % number in the artwork window hit 100%.  That is what it will look like printed (in terms of quality & crispness, etc.).  When viewing at a smaller size (to fit it on the screen) it will anti-alias because PS is using math to shrink it and you won't get the smooth gradiations.  That's what happens with raster art.  THis only means that it looks bad ON SCREEN!  The printed output will have the QUALITY of the image viewed at 100%, but probably smaller.

remember that what you see at 100% is not the actual SIZE!

It works like this:

Say you have a 1"x1" image with a single letter on it.  THe image is at 600dpi.
monitor resolution is somewhere between 72 & 92dpi generally.  For the sake of arguement, lets round up the monitor resolution to 100dpi.

OK, so the print size is 600 dpi.  That is 600 dots per inch.

On your monitor (@ 100 DPI) the most pixels per inch that your monitor will show is 100.

So, when you view the image at 100% it will look on screen like it is 6"x6".  That's basically a limitation of the monitor.  When printed out, it will look like it does on the monitor at 100% (crisp & clean), but it will only be 1"x1" in size (600 dots x 600 dots in that image).  A printer can print at multiple resolutions, but a monitor can really only display at 1 resolution (in terms of DPI).  This is a big point of confusion among many people!


If you view it w/i photoshop so that the size on the screen is 1"x1" you are effectively looking at it at about 15.18 dpi.

Figure it like this...  600dpi , but screen res is 100 dpi, so in order to see it you have to make it 1/6th the size.

So you shrink it onscreen so that when you hold a ruler up to your monitor it is 1"x1".

Now you MAY think that this is 100dpi (1/6th of 600 dpi), but your monitor is still showing at 100dpi regardless.  So what once fit into 1" on your monitor (100 dpi) is now being reduced by 5/6, hence the 15.18dpi.

Now, the resolution of the monitor has not changed, but you are SEEING it as if it were 100% size at 15.18 dpi.

Confused?

Just look at it at 100% image size, and understand that that is the QUALITY of the final image, but the final image will be smaller (unless say your monitor displays 100dpi and your image is 100dpi, in which case it should be close to actual size).


Now, if you are printing small or fine text (text with REALLY skinny lines, like some script text) it is best to create that at 600dpi if that image is text only.

For printing an image+text, for sending to the printer, or whatever, the best resolution is 300 dpi.  Basically in the desktop publishing world, & printing world, graphics are usually done at 300 dpi (like in a magazine), & text is usually done at 600 dpi.  I have designed a few CDs for a few bands and I always do it this way.

You can't go wrong by rezzing too high (ex. images & text together at 600 dpi), but going too small you risk anti-aliasing problems = no crisp lines.

Now if you are taking this to a printer, you also need to ask what format do they want the file in?  Some will take PSD, some will take TIFF (there are a couple of different TIFF formats).  Also ask what colorspace they use for printing, RGB, or CMYK.  Most will want CMYK.  If this is the case, try to design your artwork in CMYK from the getgo (though many PS filters will only work in RGB mode), or design in RBG mode, and when you are finished switch to CMYK (Image->Mode->CMYK), and if there are any colors that are off, try to fix them in CMYK mode, cause that's how they look when printed on a CMYK printer.

Hope this helps somewhat.

Brain21