# Printing Question



## JCphoto (Sep 7, 2008)

I'm planning on printing this photo 11x17 on a friends huge Canon printer..







The dimensions are *6138 x 3935*. Its a panorama of 10 vertical photos hand stitched, 5 for the land portion and 5 for the sky portion.

According to Photoshop this will print at *20.5 x 13.1in* at *300 pixels per inch. *Should I just leave the PPI at 300? or should I boost it as high as it willl go at 11x17 (something like 357). If I understand PPI correctly this will simply bring out more detail when viewing closer, no?

Also, what format should I print it in? psd,jpg,tiff?

Thanks for any help or direction you can give!

JC​


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## Fangman (Sep 8, 2008)

I would resize it to your 11 x17 in Photoshop (using birubic smoother as reducing in size rather than let the printer software shrink it to fit).  300dpi should be fine and i don't think there is much to gain by a higher resolution, although if you just resize it without re-sampling the dpi would naturally be higher . . . too much is better than not enough!


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## Big Mike (Sep 8, 2008)

I would resize it to 3300 x 5100 at 300 PPI.  That will give you a size of 11x17 inches.


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## JCphoto (Sep 8, 2008)

OK, thanks guys! 

Is any certain file type (jpg, tiff, psd etc.)  better to print from though? I suppose it would depend on what software you're printing through, but is one in general, a better choice over the others?(sharper,better saturation etc.)

thanks again.


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## Big Mike (Sep 8, 2008)

JPEG is a compression format, so some info is lost, but if you are only saving as a JPEG once, and with a high quality (low compression) then there shouldn't be a noticeable quality loss.

I'd suggest you use JPEG...besides, do you have any idea how big of a file you would get from a '300 x 5100 at 300 PPI' TIFF image?


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## JCphoto (Sep 8, 2008)

Big Mike said:


> besides, do you have any idea how big of a file you would get from a '300 x 5100 at 300 PPI' TIFF image?



95.1MB :mrgreen:

Though when making a fine art print, should file size really be an issue? I suppose if there's no visible difference between the two then smaller would be better. But if there _is_ a slight improvement when saved as tiff what is the problem with a large file size? (other than taking up more room and loading slower)

thanks


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## joethedestroyer (Sep 8, 2008)

this is an awesome photo, by the way...  where was it taken?


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## Big Mike (Sep 9, 2008)

> Though when making a fine art print, should file size really be an issue? I suppose if there's no visible difference between the two then smaller would be better. But if there is a slight improvement when saved as tiff what is the problem with a large file size? (other than taking up more room and loading slower


Good point.  The best workflow is probably to print from an uncompressed file.  Although, I'm thinking that a really large file might cause problems on a system that doesn't have enough memory to handle it well.


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## JCphoto (Sep 9, 2008)

Ok thanks alot Mike! that makes sense.

and thank you Joe! This is a photo of Terminator Peak, taken from Kicking Horse Mtn Resort in Golden, British, Columbia.


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## Bifurcator (Sep 9, 2008)

<Shrug> None of this makes any sense to me. 

I wouldn't reduce it at all.  Why do you want to remove & smush pixels thus reducing detail?

Just uncheck "Resample Image" in the "Image Size" dialogue and type in "17" for inches. The image you posted is already just about the correct frame ratio so "Height" will automatically be set to about "11" inches. Then just press print. 

If you need type 17.159 and then crop a hair off the width to get a perfect 11x17 wouldn't that be much better? Resizing ("scaling") reduces detail.  I wouldn't waste the extra 57.7 PPI if it were me.


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## JCphoto (Sep 9, 2008)

Bifurcator said:


> I wouldn't waste the extra 57.7 PPI if it were me.



Thanks for your input Bifurcator, that was basicly my question from the start, should I aim to have the ppi as high as possible, or if it mattered to the average human eye past 300. I remember reading somewhere alot of photographers go with a certain multiple, so I was afraid to make it an obscure number like 357.7


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