Changing resolution and dpi in photoshop 8

[kindmuse]

I'm using Photoshop 6.0 and have a question about changing resolution under the image menu. Any advice I receive would be greatly appreciated.

When I open a picture in photoship that I have taken with my digital camera, it doesn't matter whether the image was taken as a Tiff or a jpg file, the dpi in photoshop comes up at 72. This works fine for smaller images, however, I want to go to poster size on some of my images, which obviously requires a higher resolution. My question is, does simply changing the resolution under 'Image Size" under the "Image" menu from 72 to 300 keep the quality of my images the same? Is this an appropriate way to increase the resolution of my images so that the detail will come out in the larger format image? If not, how can I get a higher resolution on my images that I download from the digital camera? Is there a way to 'program' photoshop with a higher dpi, so that I can maintain the quality of my images?

Thanks for your help.

~V

 

[jmgalvin]

Upping the roslution only works when yur going to make the physical size of the pic a good bit smaller. In the past I used to receive a lot of pics from photographers tht were 72 dpi but with a HUGE physical size. I could work with those, prepping for newpaper publication, because I always reduce to no more than 6 X 4 inches.

I'd check the manual for your camera and any software that came with the camera. It should be able to transfer at a higher resolution. I'd also suggest taking pictures at the camera;s highest quality setting and buying more flash memory if necessary to store the pics.

 

[pixl8r]

Most all digital cameras store their images at 72 ppi. You will notice that the image is thousands of pixels high by thousands of pixels wide (numbers increase with the resolution of the camera). Commonly digital cameras use screen resolution but store HUGE images (when translated to inches).

So an image that is 2000 pixels high by 3000 pixels wide (at 72ppi) in inches is 27.778 x 41.667. To get a good high resolution image reduce the size and increase the ppi resolution. A pretty safe formula is reduce by half and double the resolution.

So I could make the sample image 2000x3000 half size 1000x1500 and increase the resolution to 150ppi and it would still be very large for most uses in inches (13.899 x 20.833).

Hope it helps.

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!

 

[MadOz]

Simply go into your User Preferences and under Units and Rulers, change your New Document Preset Resolutions to 300 pixels per inch if you are planning to print the photographs.

Digital cameras usually offer you an option of what resolution you want to save pictures at. If you use your highest resolution setting, you will be able to take less pictures, but the resolution is very high, so that you have far less noise in the image. This is something you want to do if you plan to print poster size images. Read your User manual for your camera to see what the defaut setting is, and if you can adjust it for higher quality.

 

[kindmuse]

I apologize for any confusion. I'm not using Photoshop CS, I'm using Photoship 6.0. and Under "Units and Rulers" there isn't an option for "New Document Preset Resolutions."

I wonder if I "copy" my image for the software I use to download my pictures onto my computer> Open a "new file" in photoshop, set my presets to 300 DPI, and the past my image I copied into the new file. Will the quality of my picture stay the same.

 

[dimoj]

Kindmuse;

The digital camera takes the photo with a set amount of pixels.

PPI is irrelevant at this stage as that is only a print measurement and you are working with a digital image.

When you transfer that photo from your camera into Photoshop it doesn't matter what the ppi is because you are still receiving the same amount of pixels no matter if it comes into Photoshop at 72 ppi or 300 ppi. (remember it stands for Pixels per inch and the inch means a printed inch)

So that said, if the photo comes into PS at 72 ppi, all you have to do is change the ppi in Image Size to 300 ppi (with Resampling switched off) and you have a nice print resolution (but the physical size of the print has become smaller because you are putting those same pixels into a smaller amount of printed inches), but you retain the same amount of pixels captured in the original photo.

If you start trying to make your image bigger in Photoshop by upping Image Size (with Resampling on) then Photoshop is adding in extra pixels to create a bigger print size. It's guess work on behalf of the program and will only ever reduce the so called "quality" of the image. You may get alright results depending on what you want to do but you can never improve the detail this way or any other way.

If there are eight million pixels captured in your original photo, then that is all you have to work with. You can make those pixels spread across more or less inches when printed - but when you tell the computer to add pixels to the image to increase size you are only going to add a certain fuzziness.

 

[pixl8r]

A star Dimoj. I have been doing digital image resizing and adjustments for a long time with good results using the method I described, but I had never even thought to try it with resampling off. Duh!!

Just goes to show there are 2 or 3 different ways to do everything in PS.

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!

 

[yuuhuu]

WOW!! great help using dimoj tip of deselecting the resampling!
I work with small dpi images that I maybe 3-double up, and fight with the bad resolution and pixelated results. Just did one using that technique after reading pixl8r's posting, and voila!!
Thanks a million.
Btw, pixl8r, any tips on formulas for upsizing 72 dpi pics to 300 dpi qualtity????