Getting Ready to Print

5 dpi

DPI Dots Per Inch DPI has nothing to do with resolution. Printing 300 DPI tells your printer to print a dot 1/300 of an inch in size, or 300 Dots Per Inch. Monitors 96 DPI tells your monitor to display an 'element' at 1/96 of an inch or 96 elements per inch on the screen Resolution is the size of the pixel when it is printed or displayed (Pixels per inch -ppi)... or it is the number of Megapixels in a photo Note: Most consumer digital cameras set the photos dpi to 72. The dpi setting tells the camera's processor to display 72 pixels per inch on the camera's display LCD. An LCD computer monitor for a PC or a Mac generally displays at 96 pixels per inch. You can calculate your monitors actual display resolution by measuring the width and height (in inches or cm) and dividing that into the # of pixels in the display's width and height eg My 20" Dell displays at 1680 x 1050 pixels and measures 17.125 inches wide and 10.75 inches tall 1680 pixels ÷ 17.125 inches = 98 pixels/inch 1050 pixels ÷ 10.75 inches = 97.7 pixels/inch

Set the printing DPI for your picture for printing by using the menu item  Image > Image Size... You should always check to see that every picture you print has been set to the correct number of pixels per inch (200 - 300 ppi) it doesn't have to be 300 ppi... Absolute Rule:  Always sharpen a photo before you send it to a printer!

How large can I make a "perfect" print? Divide the width of a picture in pixels by the # of pixels per inch (DPI) --the value you told the printer to print per inch EG from the data on the left... Width: 2845 pixels / 300 pixels per inch  = 9.48 inches Height: 2152 Pixels / 300 Pixels per inch =7.1733 inches

4 Sharpening

...in digital image processing jargon, sharpening is about increasing edge contrast and has nothing to do with focus. .  ---http://luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/instant_photoshop.shtml

This picture below captured from digital video shot at the Beijing Opera in Beijing, China.

Because it is a video capture, the resolution is only 720 x 480 pixels. There is a lot of detail in the picture, especially in the headdress and the eyes of the subject... to improve the detail in the headdress I sharpened the picture, using a function called convolving.

Convolve allows you to mathematically manipulate the data, that is the pixel value of each pixel in the picture. This is accomplished by using a matrix grid that overlays the picture. The under lying pixels are then processed or enhanced.

To sharpen a picture you use a convolution matrix with the unlikely name of Unsharp Mask

If you over do Unsharp Masking you'll start to see white fringing around parts of the image... so use this function sparingly and avoid the white fringing. If your software allows you to use LAB Mode (not available in PhotoShop Elements), sharpen in the luminance or lightness layer...

Interestingly enough, today's digital cameras do this unsharp masking in the camera when you save the picture in Tiff or Jpg format.... Some cameras even allow you to set the level of sharpening. But, if you save your picture data in RAW format, no image processing takes place at all and you must do the sharpening later in the computer with your image processing software.
Always do sharpening last just before you print the picture.

Roll mouse arrow over picture to see the effect	If you check preview, you can see how the different values affects the entire photo ---on the canvas. Clicking in the sharpening window in the above Filter Dialogue box shows you the before/after affects of the filter .

Here are Some Sharpening  Recipes for you to try when sharpening a photograph for publication. The numbers are for the Filter ---> Unsharp Mask.  The given values below are conservative -- a good place to start...
Basic Sharpening		Soft Subjects		Portraits
Set Amount to 125% Radius to 1 Threshold to 3		Set Amount to 150% Radius to 1 Threshold to 10		Set Amount to 75% Radius to 2 Threshold to 3
Moderate Sharpening		Maximum  (for slightly out of focus pictures)		All Purpose
Set Amount to 225% Radius to 0.5 Threshold to 0		Set Amount to 65% Radius to 4 Threshold to 3		Set Amount to 85% Radius to 1 Threshold to 4
WEB Sharpening		Mid Tone Detail !!! ...Clarity...		Click on slideshow to view larger version
Set Amount to 400% Radius to 0.3 Threshold to 0		Set Amount to 20% High Pixel Radius 78 Threshold 0

Mega Ultra Professional Sharpening using L - A - B (Photoshop Only)
Step1. Duplicate your Photo (PC)(Control + J) Step 2. Convert from RGB to LAB using the Image/mode menu Step 3. In the layers palette open Channels and highlight only the Lightness Channel
Step 4.  Choose Filter/Sharpen/unsharp mask or Smart Sharpen we will only be applying sharpening to the Lightness channel. When sharpening always keep the filter window at 100% A radius > (greater than) 3 belongs to the realm of special effects, but none the less --experiment! A rule for figuring the radius setting is to divide  the resolution of the file in pixels per inch (ppi) by 200 So if you photo is at 300 ppi the radius is = 300/200 = 1.5 Clicking with the pointer (hand) in the result window will reveal what the picture looked like before you changed the radius settings Step 5. Click okay
Step 6. Duplicate the layer you just sharpened
Step 7. Apply the sharpening filter again, but this time increase the sharpening for areas that can hold more sharpening, stay away from edges, (do wall textures, animal skins, landscapes) Do not worry if other parts of the photo are starting to look ugly (we'll mask the effect) Step 8. Click okay
Step 9. Go to the layers palette and hold down the Alt Key and click on the layer mask Icon This puts a black mask over the ultra sharp layer and blocks the extra sharpening Step 9. Set the foregound color to white Step 10. Select a soft edged brush and paint over the areas that can use the mega-ultra professional sharpening... you can lower the opacity of the brush to limit the effect or increase the effect by painting a second time over the mask. Step 11. you can see the mask if you hold down the alt key and click on the mask
Step 12. To get back to mask painting click on the colored layer thumbnail in the layers palette and then click the black mask beside it... Step 13. ...Continue until well sharpened... and you are ready to print...

How to make a studio gallery print

Camera, Lights, Action!!!

For Photoshop only (unfortunately, Photoshop Elements does not have an "actions" palette) In Photoshop, you can record every step you take while working on a photo and then play the action script and apply each step on a new photo! This allows you to do repetative steps quickly! You can set this up in the action palette, Menu, window/actions You can save the results and play it back as a batch on a folder full of pictures or repeat your actions on just a single picture Studio Border is an action that adds a white border to a photograph, adds a stroke (Outline) around the photo and a second outline 2 -3 % larger than the first outline (stroke) It then adds text to the photograph You can edit the action to suit your own needs