Best Way to Resize Images For Printing - CS3

Question for those of you printing your images yourself or getting them done commercially, maybe Daisy Chains etc.

I have taken pictures on my camera. I now want to give them to someone else on a CD or send them away so they can get them printed in the best possible quality already pre-set at 5x7 or 8x6. I know the ratios and hence the picture composition itself has to be changed to do this.

I would like hear how you guys and gals do it best to set up images to maintain quality. Also, if sending them away, should I be setting up certain colour space etc. I am using CS3.

One more point, is your workflow typically to resize your image first and then do all your PP work? If you were doing commercial work, and clients wanted different print sizes this changes the composition?

Thanks for any help.

Optimum print resolution is 300 dpi, so make sure your document is set to that else the quality will be poor when printing.

Also make sure you colour mode is cmyk, as rgb is for screen. For even better results contact the printer and see if they're able to supply you with a colour profile that relates to their printers.

Good tips from Dan.

Also get your screen calibrated - so you know your colours are as accurate as possible for that screen.

I use Genuine Fractals plug-in software for Adobe products. It allows exact enlargements up to 1000% of the original without quality loss. I always crop first, make my adjustments including noise reduction, sharpen and finally resize.

Ill start off with my current workflow..

1: Upolad all TIFFs to clients referenced folder.
2: Go through keepers and binners
3: Put all keepers through NX2 (sharpen Crop to a ratio of 5x7)
4: Open the images in CS4 at 300dpi CYMK @ 16bit
5: Add my magic then save in a seperate folder usually marked complete (also save to disk)

For printing I upload to my printers Remote Order Entry System and they will provide any colour corrections upon request.

6: Watermarked images go into a 3rd folder along with their gallery.

5x7 is a pretty safe size to go for, but i will always allow breathing room in my shots just incase a different crop is needed

HTH

Thanks, for the ideas

I work on everything at full size and full resolution and upload medium email jpg's to my gallery. Once the client has chosen what images they like, i then crop to the required size and send original file for printing.

Other work (graphics etc) are all done 300dpi in CMYK, uploaded to gellery as medium email jpgs, but again once client has chosen the full res graphic will get resized to the required size and sent to print... although with graphic work the full size of the image is usually given at the start of the project.

There are preset sizes in CS3 when u select the crop tool. look in the tool box or you c an set the size yourself in the W and H boxes.

Thanks Grant, the problem with that is it just crops a chunk out of the image to fit the crop size. Basically what I want to do is resize the image to fit the 5 x7 (or whatever) paper with just losing the small excess that will be created by trimming to fit the ratio of the paper compared to the image.

i do that by going to IMAGE...IMAGE SIZE then set it from there put in 10x8 etc . 300dpi for prints 71 for things like my web site .. it might not be the best way but seems to work for what i have printed on my new printer