Chapter 8: Printing andExporting Images | Photoshop CS4 QuickSteps

After you use the powerful Photoshop toolset to hone your image to perfection, you’re ready to print your image or save it for future use. In this chapter, you’ll learn valuable information about printing and saving images. You’ll see how to save your images as noncompressed files and as Photoshop PSD files. You’ll also learn to save a document while preserving layers. You’ll find out how to print your images on a desktop inkjet printer and use the powerful Print With Preview command to resize the document and set other parameters within a single dialog box.

Print Your Work

Editing your image and applying special effects puts your creative muse to work. However, Photoshop also lets you be creative on the print end. You can print your image to your local printer or create a picture package that includes several different sizes of the same image on a single sheet.

When you print an image from within Photoshop, you can print a single image, print multiple images, preview an image prior to printing, and much more. When you print an image from within Photoshop, you can use the powerful Page Setup command. From within the Page Setup dialog box, you can specify the size and orientation of the printed image. If you prefer to set all parameters for printing within a single dialog box, you can do so using the Print With Preview command.

QuickSteps—Preparing the Image for Printing

Select Image | Image Size to open the Image Size dialog box.
In the Document Size section, type the desired values for Width or Height. As a rule, you’ll type a value to match the document size to the paper size in your printer paper tray.
Accept the default document resolution, or enter a different value in the Resolution field. You should not exceed the current document resolution; otherwise, pixelation may occur when Photoshop resamples the image. You can, however, select a lower resolution to match your desktop printer.
Click OK to size the image.

Print Images with a Desktop Printer

One of the easiest ways to see the fruits of your creative labor in Photoshop is to print a copy of the image on your local printer. If you own a printer that is capable of using photo paper, you can create an image suitable for framing on glossy or matte paper. The results can be stunning, especially if you own one of the new six-color inkjet printers. These gems are capable of mixing about any color you can throw at them. If your monitor is properly calibrated, what you see on the screen is what you’ll take out of the printer tray.

Note

Many printers have a built-in margin which you’ll have to subtract from the Width or Height value. You can find the margins for your default printer by accessing the Page Setup dialog box. If you haven’t maximized the image to the workspace, click the bottom border of the document window, and from the shortcut menu select Page Setup.

Use the Page Setup Command

Select File | Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box.
Open the Size drop-down list, and select the desired paper size.
Open the Source drop-down list, and select the paper source.
In the Orientation section, click Portrait or Landscape. This determines how your image will be mapped to the printed page. Select Portrait if your image is taller than it is wide, Landscape if your image is wider than it is tall.
Click Printer to open the second Page Setup dialog box.
Open the Name drop-down list, and select the desired printer.
Click Network to select a printer on your network.
Click Properties to set properties for the selected printer. This opens a dialog box that you use to specify settings for the selected printer. The illustration shows the Epson Stylus Photo 925 Properties dialog box.
Specify the settings for your printer.

Click OK to exit the second Page Setup dialog box, and then click OK to exit the first Page Setup dialog box.

Note

When you enter a different resolution, deselect the Resample Image check box. If you don’t, Photoshop will change the pixel dimensions of the image, which involves interpolation when redrawing the image. When Photoshop redraws pixels, image degradation may occur and the file size will increase. When you deselect the Resample Image option and change image resolution, the image print-size is changed accordingly. For example, if you have an 800 600 pixel image at 72 PPI, the document will print at 11.111 8.333 inches. When you change the resolution with the Resample Image check box deselected and change the image resolution to 300 PPI, the pixel dimensions are still 800 600, but the document will print at 2.66 2 inches.

Print an Image

After setting up the page, you’re ready to print the image.

Select File | Print to open the Print dialog box.
Open the printer Name drop-down list, and select the desired printer. This step is not necessary if you’ve already invoked the Page Setup command.
Click Properties to reveal the dialog box for the selected printer’s properties. This step is not necessary if you’ve already invoked the Page Setup command.
In Copies, type the number of copies you want to print. Alternatively, you can click the spinner buttons to set the value.

Click OK to print the document.

Note

The Print dialog box shows a Page Range and Collate section. Photoshop does not support multipage documents. These sections are carryovers from the generic Windows Print dialog box.

Note

If the image is bigger than the currently selected printer media, the handles will not be visible. Move your pointer over the top or bottom border of the bounding box. When the pointer becomes a vertical line with a dual-headed arrow, drag to resize the image.

Tip

If you’re printing an image on a photo-size paper with perforations, you can set the Crop Tool width, height, and resolution to match the paper size. Resize the image to the approximate size of the paper, and then use the Crop Tool to crop the image to the paper size. See Chapter 6 for more information on the Crop Tool.

Use the Print with Preview Command

Select File | Print With Preview to open the Print with preview dialog box.
Drag one of the corner handles of the image preview to rescale the image. The white area around the image thumbnail represents the printer media size.
Accept the default Position options, or click the Center Image check box to deselect the option. If you deselect this option, the Top and Left text fields become available, enabling you to enter the value you want for the image offset from the top and the left border of the page. Alternatively, you can drag the thumbnail preview to determine where the image will appear on the printed page.
Under Scaled Print Size, accept the default value, which will be 100 percent, or a different value if you manually scaled the image preview. Alternatively, you can select from the following options:
- Scale enables you to enter a value to which you want the image scaled. This is a percentage of the image’s original size.
- Scale to Media scales the document to fit the printer media.
- Width enables you to enter a value to which you want the width of the document sized. After entering a value, the height of the document is scaled proportionately.
- Height enables you to enter a value to which you want the height of the document sized. After entering a value, the width of the document is scaled proportionately.
- Show Bounding Box (enabled by default) displays a bounding box around the image thumbnail with four handles that you use to resize the document.
- Print Selected Area becomes available if you select a region of the document with one of the marquee select tools. This technique will be covered in a forthcoming section.
1. After setting print options, do one of the following:
  - Click Print to print the image. Click Cancel to cancel printing.
  - Click Done to exit the dialog box and preserve the current options.
  - Press alt and click Print One Copy to print one copy of the image with the current settings
  - Press alt and click Reset to reset the dialog box to the default settings for the image.
  - Press alt and click Remember to save the current print options without exiting the dialog box.
    
    Tip
    To change the unit of measure, open the unit of measure drop-down list, and select an option.

QuickSteps—Printing a Single Copy of a Page

You can print a single copy of the document using the parameters you selected in the Page Setup dialog box.

Select File | Print A Copy.

Tip

Often what you see on the screen isn’t what you get from the printer. You can ensure better results if you calibrate your monitor. You can use the Adobe Gamma utility, which is shipped with Photoshop, to calibrate your monitor. See Chapter 1.

Print Vector Graphics

To create a document with vector graphics, such as shapes or text, you can print the image to a PostScript printer such as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. In this case, Photoshop sends the vector information as separate images for each type layer and vector shape, so that the vector graphics can print at full resolution, regardless of the resolution of the background image.

Click File | Page Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box.
Click Printer to select a postscript printer and specify other print options.
Click OK to exit the Page Setup dialog box.
Select File | Print With Preview to open the Print dialog box.
Click the Show More Options check box.
Open the drop-down list beneath the check box, and select Output.
Click the Include Vector Data check box.
If necessary, select a postscript encoding option from the Encoding drop-down list.
Click Print.

Use Color Management When Printing

When you print an image, you can let the printer take the reins and perform color management, or you can override the printer’s color management by specifying a color management profile. A color profile describes the color space of a device, such as a monitor or printer, and the color space of the actual document itself. A color management profile is embedded with the document. You decide whether to accept the embedded color profile or use the specified Photoshop color profile. A device color profile does not change the document color values; it is merely a method used by the device to interpret color values in the document.

Click File | Print With Preview to open the Print with preview dialog box.
If the drop-down list below the thumbnail image doesn’t read Color Management, open it and click Color Management.
Under Source Space, accept the default Document option to print the document with the color profile currently assigned to the document.
If necessary, click Page Setup to access the Page Setup dialog box, and select a printer, media size, and so on.
Under Print Space, open the Profile drop-down list, and select an option. Your list will vary depending on the devices you have attached to your system. If you select an option other than Same As Source or Printer Color Management, the Intent option becomes available.
If necessary, open the Intent drop-down list, and select one of the following options:
- Perceptual attempts to preserve color values to produce a print with colors that appear natural to the human eye. This rendering option may change color values and is useful for photographic images that may contain out of gamut colors.
- Saturation renders a print with vivid saturated colors. This rendering intent will change color values and is especially useful for documents that contain graphics, such as graphs or bar charts, where visual impact is more important than preserving the relationship between colors.
- Relative Colormetric renders an image by comparing the extreme highlight of the image color space to the color space of the selected color profile. This option shifts out of gamut colors to the closest reproducible color in the destination color space. This option preserves more of the image’s original colors than does the Perceptual rendering intent.
- Absolute Colormetric does not alter image colors that fall within the destination gamut. This rendering intent clips out of gamut colors and does not scale colors to the destination white point. Use this color intent to maintain color accuracy while creating a proof to simulate the output of a particular device. Note that this rendering intent may not preserve the color relationship between colors.
1. Click Print to print the document.
  
  Note
  You can also include vector data when you save an image with vector objects in the EPS format.

QuickSteps—Printing Part of an Image

There may be times when you want to print part of an image without altering the original with the Crop Tool. You can easily print the desired portion of an image by selecting the area and then invoking the Print With Preview command.

Print a Selection

Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool, and drag inside the image to define the area you want to print, as shown in the following image.
Click File | Print With Preview to display the Print dialog box.
Click the Print Selected Area check box.

Click Print.

Tip

Open a digital image and select File | Online Service to open the Online Services dialog box. As of this writing, there is only one online service available: Shutterfly, which enables you to order high-quality prints of your digital image. After signing up online, you can receive 15 free prints.

Create a Contact Sheet

If you’re a digital photographer, you download your pictures from a media card to your hard drive before editing them in Photoshop. Many digital photographers archive their original images to CD disks for future use. Before archiving the images to disk, you can create a contact sheet, which can be used to identify the images stored on the disk. Figure 8-1 shows a contact sheet.

Select Window | File Browser and navigate to the folder of images you’re going to archive to disk.
Select File | Automate | Contact Sheet II to display the Contact Sheet II dialog box. Alternatively, if you’re working with the File Browser, open choose Automate | Contact Sheet II from the File Browser menu.
Open the Use drop-down list, and select one of the following options:
- Current Open Documents to create a contact sheet using the documents you currently have open in Photoshop.
- Folder to create a contact sheet using images stored in a folder. If you select this option, the Browse button becomes available, which you use to navigate to the desired folder.
- Selected Images From Browser to create a contact sheet using the images currently selected in the File Browser. If no images are selected, the contact sheet is created using images from the folder currently displayed in the File Browser.
1. Under Document, specify the size of the media to which you’ll be printing the contact sheet as well as the resolution at which the contact sheet thumbnails will be printed. If your printer uses default margins, the default 8 x 10 inch size works well with 8 x 11 inch paper.
2. Type a value in the Resolution field. This is the resolution at which the thumbnails will be created and therefore printed. The default value of 72 pixels won’t give you much detail. Type a value of about 150 to create thumbnails with better detail.
3. Open the Mode drop-down list, and select one of the following color mode options: Grayscale, RGB Color, CMYK Color, or Lab Color.
4. Accept the Flatten All Layers option to create a composite thumbnail of all layers.
5. Under Thumbnails, click the Place drop-down option, and select one of the following: Across First or Down First.
6. Accept the default Use Auto-Spacing option, and Photoshop evenly spaces the thumbnails across rows and columns. If you disable this option, the Vertical and Horizontal text boxes become available, enabling you to enter the value by which you want the thumbnails spaced.
7. Type values in the Rows and Columns text boxes to determine how many thumbnails will be placed in each row and how many columns will comprise the contact sheet.
8. Click the Rotate For Best Fit check box to have thumbnails rotated for best fit. This option will rotate any portrait thumbnails to landscape mode, which might make them difficult to view if you pack several rows and columns of thumbnails on a contact sheet.
9. Accept the default Use Filename As Caption option, and Photoshop will list the applicable file name beneath the thumbnail. If you deselect this option, the contact sheet will display only images.
10. Open the Font drop-down list, and select the font that will be used to display the caption text.
11. Open the Size drop-down list, and select a size. Alternatively, you can enter a value in this field.
12. Click OK to process the contact sheets. Note that this may take some time depending on the number of images you are committing to the contact sheet.
13. Select each contact sheet in turn, and then select File | Print.
  
  Figure 8-1: Create a contact sheet of images stored in a folder.
  
  Tip
  Store your contact sheets in a loose-leaf binder for ready reference when you need to find a specific image.
  
  Tip
  If your images have long file names, select a small font size, otherwise the caption will be truncated.
  
  Note
  Alternatively, you can click a thumbnail in the File Browser, and select Automate | Picture Package from the File Browser menu.
  
  Note
  You can also create a picture package by selecting a folder of images or an individual image file, options you’ll find on the Use drop-down list, in the Picture Package dialog box.

Create a Picture Package

If you use Photoshop to edit photos for clients or create images for friends and relatives, you can create a picture package. A picture package prints more than one copy of an image on a sheet. You can mix different sizes, for example, one 5 x 7 inch and two 3 x 5 inch photos on one 8 x 10 sheet. Figure 8-2 illustrates a picture package.

Open the desired image.
Click File | Automate | Picture Package to display the Picture Package dialog box.
Accept the default Foremost Image option to create a picture package from the currently active document.
Open the Page Size drop-down list, and select the desired size.
Open the Layout drop-down list, and select the desired layout.
Type the desired print resolution in Resolution. Specify a resolution no greater than the resolution of the image for which you’re creating the picture package.
Under Label, click the Content drop-down box, and select an option. Note that the last four items are derived from the file’s metadata. If you select Custom Text, the Custom Text field becomes available, enabling you to enter the text you want displayed as an image caption.
If you select one of the caption options, select the remaining options for Font, Font Size, Color, Opacity, Position, and Rotate.
Click OK to create the Picture Package.
Click File | Print to print the picture package.

Figure 8-2: You can create a Picture Package with multiple images on a single sheet.

QuickSteps—Saving a Document

When you open an image in Photoshop, after editing the file, you’ll want to save it. You can save the file using its native format. If the image’s native format does not support layers, you’ll need to flatten layers before you can save the file in its native format.

Open the desired image file.
Edit the file using the techniques shown in Chapter 6, “Correcting Color, Retouching, and Repairing Images.”
If necessary, flatten the image.
Select File | Save.