Please help! Photoshop question!!?

Question

I have created a poster which will be printed out A2 size, however when i went to the printers, the resolution wasn't high enough. How can i make the resolution of the image higher so it's good enough for printing at this size?

Please help!

Dizzybint, does that mean i have to recreate the entire page again, it took ages! Can i not just open the image in illustrator and save it again?

Answer 1

If you want to send me a copy I will take a look for you. [e-mail].

Answer 2

You should start out with the proper DPI and recreate it up from there. I would go with 300 dpi for printing. If you're using photoshop this is no prob, but you'd probably get a cleaner product from Illustrator if you know it. You can alter the DPI in the image size tab.

You will have to make sure your artwork is at a high DPI so it prints ok, work with the largest images you can muster. Then depending where you are getting this printed save it out in whatever format your printer prefers. Usually Tiffs & Eps's are what you need unless you are going to Kinkos, in which case save it out as a PDF.

Unfortunately, if your project was not created at the correct resolution you can't just open and resave. It will look pretty bad. If you still have the psd that might save you some of the work, but you will have to recreate the poster if you want it to look ok.

Answer 3

You need to re-sample the image to the new resolution.
Open the file, go to IMAGE > Image Size , which will open up a palete with the dimensions on, change the size to A2 and the resolution to 300dpi, tick 'scale styles', 'constrain proportions' and re-sample as 'bicubic'. This will only work if the images is of good enough quality. You may then need to add some gausian blur to break the pixel edges up and then add a little noise to break up the blurred edges.

Opening the same file in Illustrator won't help. If the information isn't in the image file to start with, a second programme wont 'add' in the missing bits, it will be able to rip the file at a high res, but the pixels will show.

Answer 4

Think of the resolution of the image like a piece of cloth: the higher the resolution the finer the weave. Low resolution comes out chunky (pixelated), whilst high resolution looks like a photo.

If your image is A2 (297 x 420mm) @ 72dpi [Dots Per Inch] - that's low resolution - and you want it at the same physical size but 300dpi then you have to tell Photoshop to make up the pixels in-between. This is called "upscaling". This will make the image blurry.

You see, those pixels don't exist. Say you have a black pixel next to a white pixel at 72dpi - quite a sharp contrast black against white - and you want to change your document to 300dpi, what happens is that PS looks at the black pixel, then the white pixel, and makes 3 or 4 pixels in-between to blend from black into white. So the sharp contrast you had before is now a smooth gradient from black, through grey, into white. This is why it blurs, your contrasts get "smoothed".

The solution offered earlier - to drop it into Illustrator - will just do the same thing, create pixels where there weren't pixels before.

One method, though not perfect, is to manage the "upscale" incrementally by increasing the size of the image by 12% in each step. For some reason, this seems to be a sweet spot in the PS scaling algorithm that upscales but retains a lot of detail.

First off go to Image>Image Size and in the window that opens unselect Resample Image and change the Resolution dropdown to "pixels/inch", if it isn't already, then enter 300 next to Resolution. Click OK.

Now go back to Image>Image Size and in the window that opens reselect resample Image and enter 112 next to Width and change from Pixels to Percent. Click OK.

Do this until you get as close as possible to 297 x 420mm

Answer 5

What was the resolution they were looking for? Usually it needs to be 300 dpi. If you go to to image size (I think I don't have the program on this machine) then where is says resolution put 300 there that should be good enough. I will make your file huge. but if that is what they want then that is all you can do. Do a save as and that way you will have your original copy.

Answer 6

Unless you've made your poster at 72dpi or something, it may look OK despite what the printer's telling you.

Remember a poster is generally viewed/read from a greater distance than say a magazine. This concept works best for billboards etc. you wouldn't create a billboard sized poster actual size at 300dpi as the files would be too big.

Answer 7

You need to actually create the page on a programme like Adobe illustrator, and place the image which has to be really high qual to be A2. then save the illustrator doc as Jpeg and then take to the printers This should then turn out A2

Answer 8

Sadly you can't. In Photoshop you have made a raster image, made up of pixels, as you go up in size the resolution won't, so it looks "blocky". There are only two ways of avoiding this, as you say, re do the whole poster - but start in A2 or bigger, or get Adobe illustrator and do it as a vector drawing (vector drawinds are not made of pixels, so can be re-sized indefinitely)

You are going to have to start again from scratch I'm afraid, unless you have pots of cash to buy more software.

Answer 9

Photoshop is cool. Try GIMP or Gimpshop. I used them. Gimpshop is the best photoshop clone in my opinion. Look at the Wikipedia article to download it at the official site.

Answer 10

Just a note to say that there are FREE alternatives to Illustrator. Inkscape is an excellent one. Get it here:
http://www.inkscape.org/

Answer 11

You can also print it to an EPS-file This postscript file can then be printed by Highresolution Image printer.