Skip to main content

Technical Issues

Lesson 33 from: Photoshop for Photographers

Ben Willmore

Technical Issues

Lesson 33 from: Photoshop for Photographers

Ben Willmore

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

33. Technical Issues

Lesson Info

Technical Issues

when you create a new document or when you open in a document through camera wrong, you need to tell it what resolution to use. So if I go to photo shop in a creative brand new file, you need to specify a width ah, height in a resolution and it needs those three pieces. So I want to talk a little bit about that. There are different ways that you can express the width and height, but unless you're gonna express it in pixels, somebody is not going to know how big your file is. How much information is in your file, unless you also include a number for resolution. If you tell me in pixels where you tell me, it's exactly so many pixels high and pixels wide, I can know how much is in your file. But if you tell me in inches or centimetres or anything like that without telling me the resolution number, I'll have no idea. Because if I set this two inches and you say you have an eight by 10 image this number down here. If it is one, that means you have one pixel in each one of those inches that ...

means you'd have a total of eight inch eight pixels on the width and 10 pixels. On the height. You'd have a file that is so small I might not be able to tell. I opened it when I did, you know. So when you have talked to people about your images and try to describe how much information you have in them, if you're going to use inches to describe them, please try to include the number for resolution as well. The number for resolution is measured in pixels per inch. What that really means is, how big are the squares that make up your image at the time you print them? At the time you print? How big are they when you print? The higher this number is, the smaller they are because you're fitting mawr of something in an inch. If you get 300 of something in an inch, they got to be pretty small, compared fitting five of them in an inch. And they could be big. So with resolution, if you get this number typed in and you plan on putting your image, it's too low. Your image is gonna look pixelated. It's going to look, Jaggi, you're gonna be able to see the pixels that make up your picture. If this number is too high when you print, then it's going to take much longer to print because you got more information than you need, and your image can look a little bit softer than it should. And the reason for that is have you ever sharpen a picture? Sharpening is a tiny, tiny amount of really small edge around the edges of objects one pixel or maybe a pixel on 1/2 wide. And if you make the pixels so that number is way too high, which means the pixels are too small, you're sharpening kind of almost disappears because it's so small your printer can't resolve something that small, so it doesn't quite work. So we want to make sure that this number for resolution is in a range, that it's acceptable for whatever kind of printing you plan to do. Okay, so let's take a look at that. Here are my general suggestions. In general, there's a range here because you can get away with a big range of resolutions, depending on what it does your printing on what I would say is the closer you get to something that has a pure black next to pure white. You know that ultimate resident, that ultimate contrast of, like pure black text on pure white background. That's where it's easiest to see the Jackie's. And so what that means is, if you have things like a sailboat with amassed, going up that's really crisp on the edge of it in the background is quite a bit darker than it. You have guitar strings where the guitar strings might be catching the light that's around it, but behind it is that round hole in your guitar that's really dark. You have that really high contrast, where you have buildings and the windows usually have very high contrast without. The sun is hitting them, and they're really straight lines. If you ever have straight lines that are just the little lisp it off from being perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal. And that can happen with sailboat mass. That can happen. Guitar strings can happen with buildings, especially if you tilt your camera up. That's when it's going to be more critical that you tend on the high side of this range because it's When you get extremely high quality, they're not high quality. High contrast straight lines. That is just a little bit off from being vertical or horizontal. You might see the JAG is there. If, on the other hand, you don't have that stuff. Instead, you have a picture of trees and grass. It's not critical what part of the Ranger in it's when you get things that are really high contrast straight lines. You want to tend to the high side. Yeah, a large print like something on the wall that has very high contrast lines in it because that is an image off. I'm using steel wool that's on its molten still well flying around. So it's extremely bright in what's behind. It is so dark that it gives me that quality that I'm talking about, where you have extreme contrast and that is semi straight lines. And it's so right there is where I tend towards the high side. So it would be a pretty good example of it, Uh, so, yeah, I would tend towards the Hyde side here, push it towards the higher. Otherwise, if you look really close at that, you might be able to start seeing little bitty jag ease. If, on the other hand, I have the image behind me, this doesn't have necessarily really high contrast. I don't see an area almost white touching an area almost black. And if I dio it might have a slightly soft transition there it not as crisp and just sharp is that one. And so here it wouldn't matter. But it's when you get to those really high contrast lines that it would question more. What, on a number scale is it? Where would you put prints on there? Wouldn't be under inkjet or when you talk are you talking about? I mean, I do my prints on an inkjet, so I'm not sure what kind of output you dio. If you use something other than these and you send out for that output, I would ask the company that you're sending it to what range to use, because it really depends on what kind of technology they're using to print it without knowing that it's hard to tell you exactly what to use. I wanted to give you a general guideline, though. So then let's say I have an image. Who knows what the source of the images. I want to know. How big could I print it? Yeah, How big can I print this thing? Or I'm gonna buy a camera. And I'm like, Well, how higher resolution of a camera do I need? Well, that that's determined by how big you need to print things. So if you think about how big you need to print things, let's say you want to print things eight by and you're gonna print him on an inkjet. So that means this general range Here's how you can use photo shop is a calculator to tell you what size file you need. So remember to 43. go to photo shop and I tell it, I want to create a new file. And down here, I type in the general resolution I'm thinking about. I'm gonna type in 2 40 Most photographs don't have those really high contrast lines there. Almost straight. If I was an architectural photographer, they do have a lot of straight lines and buildings that might be just a little spit off. I type in the higher range, then here I type in. I sent this two inches and I say I want to make an eight by so I'm just dial in the size of print I desire in the resolution that's in the range of whatever kind of output device I plan to use. Then make sure you're haven't you don't have the numbers for with their hide active. Instead, you have the number for resolution active because that way, whatever one you have selected might not be able to change, whereas I want it to be ableto change width and height. Then change the this menu for the measurement system two pixels, and it will do the math for you to tell you how many pixels you would need in the width and height. All it's doing is overly simple. Math. This number is measured in pixels per inch. This is how many inches. So all it's doing is multiplying this number by this number, because if you have this many pixels in each inch, you multiply that by how many inches you have. So anyway, if I change this two pixels, that's the resolution I would need in my picture. I could look up digital cameras in the brochures. It tells you the width and height of how many pixels that camera delivers. If it's at least this, then I can easily print it the size I desired. So let's say Want to go in here and it's set this two inches. I want to do only a four by six inch print because it's all we ever do change into pixels. It tells you how much information you would need in order to have that. This is the minimum amount of information you can always scale picture up. If you scale a picture up, it will look a little softer to compensate for that, you could sharpen it to try to bring a little bit of sharpness left. But in an ideal situation, you could use this as a calculator to figure out how much information you need. The one general thing that is different than the resolutions I've mentioned is if you ever work with graphics, not photographs, if you have a logo and there's not a photographic background behind it, logo is pure black, pure white or pure red pure something else in the background. Then these numbers are not sufficient. You need to be higher, and in general, once you get to. Once you get to about 600 it'll start looking pretty darn smooth for logos and things. If you're gonna output them professionally, like being on a brochure and you want the absolute highest quality. 1200 is for a logo that's pretty high. And that's why most logos are not created in photo shop. Most logos Air created an adobe illustrator, Adobe Illustrator. When you get a logo back, let's see. Had a designer do it. The end of the file name on it will end with dot e. P s. And that's what commonly comes out of Illustrator. Those air are files that are not made out of pixels. They don't they don't get JAG ease. You can scale them up or down to any size. You want file sizes really small, and that's because it was not made with photo shop. Something made with photo shop is made out of pixels where if you zoom up on it, you'll be able to see the individual pixels that make it up. So if I zoom up on any picture eventually you're going to see it made out of squares with an illustrator file you consume up on it as far as you want, and you never see it made out of little squares. Instead, it always remains smooth. But illustrator He is only good with working with solid colors in very simple Grady ations from one color to another. It's not great doing things like making grass and other things not great for photos. So if you ever really want your logo to ah, look, it's best and you have it designed by someone else. You get it made out of in Adobe Illustrator and you don't have to worry about that so much general questions about resolution. Yes, we do. Great. First of all, do you teach Adobe in design? And this is really strange. I don't I don't use illustrator. I work with photos, so I don't I was gonna say we got a bookie for that. No, no, I can probably think of somebody. Eso A lot of folks are asking colluding bananas and Kim Photo. Who is from Norway? What should we do when you want to print print at 300 but are raw files are at 2 40 So a lot of people are no sure. Let me go find a raw file if I can. Here's a raw file. It's not a good where I file that's rough. Uh, your raw files only come in at 2 40 because that's the setting you have attached to it. When you're in camera, at the bottom of your screen is a little line of text, and if you click on that line of text that appears at the bottom, this will come up in right here for resolution. You can type in whatever number you want, so the only reason they come into 2 40 is that's the default setting. And so if you need something other than to 40 if you look on that little chart that I gave you of the resolutions and you say, Hey, that's not how I print then you could take them whatever you want here. And it should remember that number for future files and so would open them. Using that what'll happen is the higher the number you type in that smaller, your picture will be in inches. You'll have the same amount of information within the file. It's just when you go to print, you'll find that the dimensions and inches go down Yes, all the printing questions are Are flying whole three day works upon printing, Of course. Um, Clyde and Philly said, since many printers have been based on a 14 40 PP. I Is it better to keep image resolution as multiples or even fractions of this number like 7 23 60 to 40 etcetera? Um, it depends on how precise you are with everything. For most people, it wouldn't be critical for those that have an absolutely ideal image. I mean, one where it's so tack sharp. It's ridiculous. You're really know what you're doing with sharpening. You really know what you're doing with absolutely everything, and you want to completely idealize your workflow. Then there's something where that concern that can come into play. But for the average person, they don't usually have all those things optimized. I don't usually have all those things optimized. It wouldn't be a critical thing

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Bens Actions.zip
Ben Willmore creativeLIVE Class Files Day 1.zip
Ben Willmore creativeLIVE Class Files Day 2.zip

Ratings and Reviews

Jim Pater
 

I taught Photoshop (version 5) to graphic design students at the college level. I had great fun teaching. This is the perfect course to show others how they might go about teaching a Photoshop course. Congratulations Ben, on your excellent teaching style and methods. I thought I already knew quite a bit about Photoshop but this course made me aware that there's always more that you can learn.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES