Emeril, sorry to hear bout the virus problem. As you may have noted, many
of us have been attacked this week and it hasn't ended yet.
Sounds like the expert resolution will give you plenty of pixels for the big
prints - and for those shots that you have to crop substantially to get the
content you want. You're right, though - the more you crop from the
original image, the more pixels are gone and the remaining ones have to be
stretched over a larger length and width - therefore less pixels per inch.
If the ppi gets much below 200 (some would say 150), you'll really begin to
notice it in your prints (pixels will start to become visible to the naked
eye as squares).
One solution is to make judicious use of resampling (upsampling in this
case) via the Image<Resize<Image Size dialog. First, with the resample box
unchecked, get the Doent Size you want, as you did before; the resolution
will be calculated for you. Let's say it calculates out to150 ppi and we've
decided we really want to be at 200 ppm. The suggested method for
upsampling is to increase the ppi by 10% per resample. In this case, I
would first check, the resample box, then increase the resolution to 165 ppi
(150 +10%) then hit OK, which will change the ppi and close the dialog.
Then go back into the Image<Resize<Image Size dialog and increase the ppi
again - this time to 182 (165+10%, more or less). Hit OK. Then do it once
more: Image<Resize<Image Size and increase ppi to 200 (182+10%). Hit OK,
then print. There's another way to accomplish the same thing without having
to do the math; you can change the pixel dimensions units to percent and
keep putting in 110% in each of the steps above instead of changing the ppi.
Whichever works easier for you.
Keep in mind that any upsampling is adding calculated pixels which may
soften the image and change some colors slightly; you may want to sharpen
the image after upsampling as a last step before printing.
Hope this helps!
Chuck
p.s. Leen and Nancy - hope I did this right...
Bookmarks