Rick Baker
07-10-2005, 11:24 PM
http://www.rickbakerimages.com/photography_advice/edit_resize_print_photos.html
So you have a bunch of pictures you took with your digital camera and you are wondering how to edit and print them in Photoshop? We are going to show you how!
First thing you need to do is go to the File Menu in Photoshop and choose “Open.”
Browse to the photo you want to open and double click on it.
Now you have a raw file, from your digital camera, opened in Photoshop. The next thing to do is to adjust it.
The first thing you want to do in adjusting your photo is to adjust the Brightness and Contrast. There are several ways to do this. Experts prefer to use the “Levels” tool, but it can be difficult to understand for beginners to Photoshop and many times I will use the “Brightness/Contrast” tool myself. It works fine for most people. Use whichever tool you are most comfortable with. Adjust the Brightness and Contrast until you are happy with the way your photo looks. Some people may know about adjustment layers, but they are an advanced topic and we won't go into them in this tutorial.
For the "Levels" tool, goto the "Image" Menu and choose "Adjustments" and then slide over and choose "Levels."
Here is the Levels tool. You will see a graph that shows you data on the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights of your photo. You may want to play around with the top 3 sliders. It is easier for beginners to Photoshop to use the “Brightness/Contrast” tool instead(see below).
The "Brightness/Contrast" tool can be accessed by going to the "Image" Menu, then "Adjustements" and then by sliding over to "Brightness/Contrast."
The "Brightness/Contrast" tool is much easier to use. Just move the sliders forward and backward (or type in values) making sure that the "Preview" box is checked and look at your photo while adjusting and click "OK" when you are happy.
The next thing you "may" want to do is to add some Saturation to your photo. Adding Saturation will make most photos look better and "pop" off the screen. You don't want to overdo it though as that will make your photo look fake.
To adjust the Saturation of you photo, goto the "Image" Menu and choose "Adjustments" and then slide over to "Hue/Saturation." In addition to adjusting the Saturation, this tool can also be used to adjust the Hue(color basically) and Lightness of the picture.
This tool is pretty easy to use and straightforward. Move the Saturation slider forward and backward until you get the results you like and then click "OK."
You may want to sharpen your photo next. You can do this with the "Unsharp Mask" tool. I know, it sounds like something opposite of what you want to do, but believe me, this is the right tool to use to sharpen your photo. Goto the "Filter" Menu this time and select "Sharpen" and then slide over to "Unsharp Mask."
This may look like a somewhat complicated tool and it sorta is. What do Radius and Threshold do? It doesn't really matter for most people. You can fool around with the settings or just leave the Radius and Threshold at the default, Radius = 1.0, Threshold = 0. Fool around with the "Amount" setting until you get something you like, maybe between 40-65, be sure not to overdo it or it will look fake, and click "OK."
Ok now that we are done with basic adjusting of the photo, we want to resize it to a standard print size, like 8" x 10", before we print it. Goto the "Image" Menu and select "Image Size".
This is the "Image Size" Dialog Box. It is somewhat complicated. It shows you the size of your photo(in pixels default) and resolution of your photo(in pixels/inch default). You should make sure "Constrain Proportions" is checked. This maintains the aspect ratio of your photo, so you don't stretch/skew the photo when resizing it.
If your image has a resolution greater than 300 pixels/inch, you should probably change it to 300 pixels/inch in the "Resolution" field. Uncheck "Resample Image" before doing this. Anything higher than 300 pixels/inch is really just unnecessarily more data for a printer to handle. If the resolution is below 300 pixels/inch, just leave it.
Ok, say we want to print an 8" x 10" picture. If you want to print a different size, just substitue different numbers. Make sure "Resample Image" and "Constrain Proportions" are checked. Make sure that under "Document Size:", inches are selected for the units of measure. Type in an 8 in the "Height" field. Now, because you have "Constrain Proportions" checked, Photoshop is going to fill in a number for the Width. It may not be what you want. We want 10 for 10 inches wide. We could uncheck "Contrain Proportions" and enter 10, but that would mess up the aspect ratio of the photo and in many cases, like with peoples' faces, the photo is going to come out stretched and we don't want that. So, we have to accept what Photoshop plugs in to keep the aspect ratio and crop down the picture to what we want.
Ok we have a photo resized to 8" x 12", but we don't want that. We want a 8" x 10". We can't just type in 10", as that will skew the photo, so we need to crop the width down to 10". So, select the "Crop" tool in the toolbar to the left. It is the third tool down from the top on the left. Look at the photo below.
Ok, now with the crop tool selected, click and drag it over the picture and make sure you don't select the whole image. Leave out some of the edges. Remember we want to get down to 10" from 12". When you are finished either hit "Enter" or right click and select "Crop". Go back to the "Image" Menu and select "Image Size" again and see where you are at. Keep cropping and checking the "Image Size" until you get down to 10" for the width. If you go too far, just hit Ctrl-Z to undo or use the History Palette, if you are familiar with it. If you get really close to 10", just a fraction of an inch away, you can uncheck "Constrain Proportions" and just type in 10. As long as you are close, you shouldn't have any noticeable skewing.
Ok, now you have your photo resized to 8" x 10", we need to rotate it so we can print it. Since you load paper into your printer vertically, you have to rotate your photo to a vertical format. Goto the "Image" Menu, choose "Rotate Canvas" and slide over to "90° CW".
Ok, now our photo is rotated and oriented vertically for printing.
First thing to do to print your photo is to goto the "File" Menu and choose "Print with Preview".
A dialog box like this will pop up. It may look different depending on what version of Photoshop you are using. Here I am using the latest version, Photoshop CS2, and I am going to print it on an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer. The Color Management settings matter a lot to make sure your printer prints the correct colors. I am not going into those, because they vary depending on what version of Photoshop you are using. The below settings work fine with Photoshop CS 2. In the upper left hand corner, you will see a preview of how your printer will print your photo with the current paper settings. If everything looks ok, like in this case, click "Print". If it doesn't look ok, maybe you don't see the whole image in the preview or it looks too small or something, you will want to click on "Page Setup" and make sure you have the right paper you are using selected. I am using 8.5" x 11" Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. This paper is excellent for making glossy prints.
After you click "Print" you will see a dialog box like this. You will probably have a different printer listed. Click on the "Properties" button to change the printer settings.
You will get a "Properties" dialog box where you can change your printer's settings. You can adjust the quality of the print here, whether you want a draft high speed copy or a high resolution photo quality print. Your "Properties" dialog box will probably look different than mine. Change the settings if you want and then click "OK".
Now you are ready to send the photo to your printer and print. Click "OK" to do this.
Article by Rick and Jeremy Baker
So you have a bunch of pictures you took with your digital camera and you are wondering how to edit and print them in Photoshop? We are going to show you how!
First thing you need to do is go to the File Menu in Photoshop and choose “Open.”
Browse to the photo you want to open and double click on it.
Now you have a raw file, from your digital camera, opened in Photoshop. The next thing to do is to adjust it.
The first thing you want to do in adjusting your photo is to adjust the Brightness and Contrast. There are several ways to do this. Experts prefer to use the “Levels” tool, but it can be difficult to understand for beginners to Photoshop and many times I will use the “Brightness/Contrast” tool myself. It works fine for most people. Use whichever tool you are most comfortable with. Adjust the Brightness and Contrast until you are happy with the way your photo looks. Some people may know about adjustment layers, but they are an advanced topic and we won't go into them in this tutorial.
For the "Levels" tool, goto the "Image" Menu and choose "Adjustments" and then slide over and choose "Levels."
Here is the Levels tool. You will see a graph that shows you data on the Shadows, Midtones and Highlights of your photo. You may want to play around with the top 3 sliders. It is easier for beginners to Photoshop to use the “Brightness/Contrast” tool instead(see below).
The "Brightness/Contrast" tool can be accessed by going to the "Image" Menu, then "Adjustements" and then by sliding over to "Brightness/Contrast."
The "Brightness/Contrast" tool is much easier to use. Just move the sliders forward and backward (or type in values) making sure that the "Preview" box is checked and look at your photo while adjusting and click "OK" when you are happy.
The next thing you "may" want to do is to add some Saturation to your photo. Adding Saturation will make most photos look better and "pop" off the screen. You don't want to overdo it though as that will make your photo look fake.
To adjust the Saturation of you photo, goto the "Image" Menu and choose "Adjustments" and then slide over to "Hue/Saturation." In addition to adjusting the Saturation, this tool can also be used to adjust the Hue(color basically) and Lightness of the picture.
This tool is pretty easy to use and straightforward. Move the Saturation slider forward and backward until you get the results you like and then click "OK."
You may want to sharpen your photo next. You can do this with the "Unsharp Mask" tool. I know, it sounds like something opposite of what you want to do, but believe me, this is the right tool to use to sharpen your photo. Goto the "Filter" Menu this time and select "Sharpen" and then slide over to "Unsharp Mask."
This may look like a somewhat complicated tool and it sorta is. What do Radius and Threshold do? It doesn't really matter for most people. You can fool around with the settings or just leave the Radius and Threshold at the default, Radius = 1.0, Threshold = 0. Fool around with the "Amount" setting until you get something you like, maybe between 40-65, be sure not to overdo it or it will look fake, and click "OK."
Ok now that we are done with basic adjusting of the photo, we want to resize it to a standard print size, like 8" x 10", before we print it. Goto the "Image" Menu and select "Image Size".
This is the "Image Size" Dialog Box. It is somewhat complicated. It shows you the size of your photo(in pixels default) and resolution of your photo(in pixels/inch default). You should make sure "Constrain Proportions" is checked. This maintains the aspect ratio of your photo, so you don't stretch/skew the photo when resizing it.
If your image has a resolution greater than 300 pixels/inch, you should probably change it to 300 pixels/inch in the "Resolution" field. Uncheck "Resample Image" before doing this. Anything higher than 300 pixels/inch is really just unnecessarily more data for a printer to handle. If the resolution is below 300 pixels/inch, just leave it.
Ok, say we want to print an 8" x 10" picture. If you want to print a different size, just substitue different numbers. Make sure "Resample Image" and "Constrain Proportions" are checked. Make sure that under "Document Size:", inches are selected for the units of measure. Type in an 8 in the "Height" field. Now, because you have "Constrain Proportions" checked, Photoshop is going to fill in a number for the Width. It may not be what you want. We want 10 for 10 inches wide. We could uncheck "Contrain Proportions" and enter 10, but that would mess up the aspect ratio of the photo and in many cases, like with peoples' faces, the photo is going to come out stretched and we don't want that. So, we have to accept what Photoshop plugs in to keep the aspect ratio and crop down the picture to what we want.
Ok we have a photo resized to 8" x 12", but we don't want that. We want a 8" x 10". We can't just type in 10", as that will skew the photo, so we need to crop the width down to 10". So, select the "Crop" tool in the toolbar to the left. It is the third tool down from the top on the left. Look at the photo below.
Ok, now with the crop tool selected, click and drag it over the picture and make sure you don't select the whole image. Leave out some of the edges. Remember we want to get down to 10" from 12". When you are finished either hit "Enter" or right click and select "Crop". Go back to the "Image" Menu and select "Image Size" again and see where you are at. Keep cropping and checking the "Image Size" until you get down to 10" for the width. If you go too far, just hit Ctrl-Z to undo or use the History Palette, if you are familiar with it. If you get really close to 10", just a fraction of an inch away, you can uncheck "Constrain Proportions" and just type in 10. As long as you are close, you shouldn't have any noticeable skewing.
Ok, now you have your photo resized to 8" x 10", we need to rotate it so we can print it. Since you load paper into your printer vertically, you have to rotate your photo to a vertical format. Goto the "Image" Menu, choose "Rotate Canvas" and slide over to "90° CW".
Ok, now our photo is rotated and oriented vertically for printing.
First thing to do to print your photo is to goto the "File" Menu and choose "Print with Preview".
A dialog box like this will pop up. It may look different depending on what version of Photoshop you are using. Here I am using the latest version, Photoshop CS2, and I am going to print it on an Epson Stylus Photo 1280 printer. The Color Management settings matter a lot to make sure your printer prints the correct colors. I am not going into those, because they vary depending on what version of Photoshop you are using. The below settings work fine with Photoshop CS 2. In the upper left hand corner, you will see a preview of how your printer will print your photo with the current paper settings. If everything looks ok, like in this case, click "Print". If it doesn't look ok, maybe you don't see the whole image in the preview or it looks too small or something, you will want to click on "Page Setup" and make sure you have the right paper you are using selected. I am using 8.5" x 11" Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. This paper is excellent for making glossy prints.
After you click "Print" you will see a dialog box like this. You will probably have a different printer listed. Click on the "Properties" button to change the printer settings.
You will get a "Properties" dialog box where you can change your printer's settings. You can adjust the quality of the print here, whether you want a draft high speed copy or a high resolution photo quality print. Your "Properties" dialog box will probably look different than mine. Change the settings if you want and then click "OK".
Now you are ready to send the photo to your printer and print. Click "OK" to do this.
Article by Rick and Jeremy Baker