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Resolution Discussion Continued

So the next thing we're gonna do is use the crop tool to change size. So we're gonna be working an expert mode for the rest of the day. So make sure that if you're following along that you're in expert mode, so we can control not on Lee the image dimensions but resolution as well with the crop tool. So if we come over here to our tools panel and we grab the crop tool, then we have all these wonderful options that come up here in our options bar. And let's say if we wanted to make a five by seven print out of this beautiful organ, then we could choose five by seven. And over here in the resolution field, if you're gonna print it, where you gonna enter free number? Anything over 240 depending upon the test that ive ran on your own printer. But a good rule of thumb is 300. Now, when I come over here to my image, I'll hide My little bar here is zoom out by person, Commander Control minus, so I can see my whole image. Now when I click and drag to draw a box atop the image that is being cons...

tricted to five by seven inches at 300 pixels per inch. So that's kind of why we went through the resolution discussion to come back over here to the crop tool so that you understand what the heck this measurement pertains to. Once you have drawn across box, you can continue to adjust the size of it with its handles. If you make the crop box larger than the canvas size and you're gonna increase the canvas size of your image, you probably don't want to do that when you're cropping. But you can also click and drag within the crop box toe, reposition it atop your image. And I love having that rule of thirds grid on there, because if I didn't compose my image just perfectly with the rule of thirds grid in camera, then I can adjust that here. So for me, the focal point is this orchid right here, and if I can put it dead center on that intersection of that tick tack toe grid than theoretically, I will produce a more visually pleasing image, so it's very forgiving that way. And of course you can change that grid any time you want by looking at the tool options. And here's where the other grid options are right here. So if this options bar is closed, just click that tool options button down there at the bottom of the interface to pop that back open. But it is handy to get out of the way while you're drawn across box. Now, when we press the green check mark elements, resize is the image. Now, how do we know that it really did what we told it to do? Well, we can go into the image size dialog box, so this is going to get a teeny bit complicated. But this is gonna be really useful for you to know, because the image size dialog box is gonna let you know how large of a print, how large of a physical size print you can make at a given resolution. You may not know. Let's say I don't remember. I have no idea anything about this image. It was sent to me, but I want to print it at 11 by 17. Are there enough pixels in that image that I can make them so tiny that I'll still have enough pixels to reach the surface space of in 11 by 17. How do I know these things? I do not know these things. Elements knows these things. So let's take a peek in that magic box for all that information lives. So we're gonna try it up to the image menu and shoes resize. So let's go ahead and give that a click and see what we have. So I can see here that this image currently is pixels wide by 2100 pixels high. It has a file size of nine megabytes. And down here in the document size section, which I wish to four was called Prince eyes. Because that's what it is. This section right here doesn't mean a hill of beans until that document is headed to a printer. So at the current resolution, which is 300 cause we just cropped it, then I can see that Yeah, you know, I've got a five by seven, and also the elements resized it and change the resolution as per my instructions. So I'm gonna cancel I that for a moment, and I'm gonna undo my crop so we can see the original UN cropped image. Now let's go usar keyboard shortcut. Or was it command option? I command option I or control all I Yeah, that's what I meant to say. Or just use the image menu resize ever size. Okay, so here we are. So here's our original image. So let's say this is fresh off a camera, and I think who I'm gonna print me in 11 by 14. That work it. Do I have enough pixels? I don't know. So the first thing we're gonna do when the style I box opens is we're gonna make sure this re sample image check boxes turned off because that will lock the pixel dimensions of our image, thereby locking the quality. That way, we can change resolution all day long, and those pixels won't change. And as long as the the volume of pixels aren't changing in her image were not affecting quality. It all all well we're doing is shrinking and expanding the pixels themselves, which in this dialog box does not cause any quality loss happening over here because we're just experimenting with numbers were not actually applying anything yet, but it's a great way to see how big of a print you can get. So not if I wanted to see if I can get by 14. Well, I could just type in into the Heights field. Now the other field is gonna pop to a specific number because they're aspect ratio of the image so this particular image doesn't have the right aspect. Ratio is not the right shape to produce in 11 by 14 but at 14 inches high, I see that Oh, my resolution would be 277 and some change, so that number changed automatically. So if I want to go even bigger, let's say I wanna fantasize about a 13 by 19 lied. Enter the largest dimension and whatever feel that is, and those other numbers change automatically. So if I were to print this image of 19 inches high, my resolution drops to 204 which you now know is a little too low. We might be able to get away with it, depending on the printer, but that gets into a little bit of a dicey area. So this is a great way to experiment with dimensions of the print that you want to make. And as long as this number is over, about 240 you're fine. But we're gonna experiment with some other images here in a second that are vastly smaller, and you'll see that we won't be able to get very big of a print at all. But this is a wonderful dialogue box to know about. The key to using it non destructively is safely is to turn off that re sample image. So I'm gonna reset this dialog box to what it was when we first opened it. By holding down option on a Mac or Altana pc. See how the cancel button changes to reset that. Why I don't have to close it. Open it back up. So now let's turn on that re sample image check box. And look, what happens now are pixel fields are active, We can change them. So now if I come in here in type into the height field, look at this right here. My file, if I were to accept this change, would now be 62 megabytes where it was 28 megabytes. That's your clue. That elements would be adding pixels that don't exist so that would be up sampling. So the only time I leave this re sample image box turned on is like if I want to resize this image for the web, in that case, you really would want to get rid of pixels in order to make file size smaller. So I've just shown you that so that you know, when these fields are active and you start changing the dimensions in these three fields right here, you are gonna start affecting the quality of your image. So nine times at 10 you want to get gonna want to turn that off unless you really are trying to create a smaller image that you're gonna email or post on the Web, etcetera. Yes. So you're saying it's gonna affect the print? It's not gonna look as good because it's adding more pixels because it's at 62 megabytes, and it was at 28. Right? Okay, So by increasing the megabytes, that tells me that I'm adding, I'm telling the program to add pixels that weren't originally in the image. So my quality is going to go to hell in a handbasket. Okay, Both on screen. And if I were to print it. OK, but as long as you keep that re sample image check box turned off, then you're not affecting quality at all. And you can experiment with that resolution measurement all day long and you're never gonna tear up your image. So we're just looking at this dialog box to let you more fully understand the relationship between pixels and resolution, how you can figure out how big of a print you can make with the given width and haIf oven image and also how you can experiment with different sizes and resolution without changing the quality. But if I did want to, let's say all this reset this again. So here we're back to original. If I turned on re sample image, and I just want to quickly reduce the size of this for the Web or email, I might type in. Oh, let's say I want to make it by 600 pixel image that I could make sure re sample images turned on because I would really want to be the leading pixels. And I could type in 800 see how the size of the file changed. Now I would end up with a one megabyte image where I had a 28 mega by image. Well, obviously nobody's gonna email 28. Making my image, I hope so. Naff we click OK that I would indeed be re sizing that image and deleting pixels. But this is just a great way to more fully understand what you got going on in your image. Let's say somebody emails you an image and you want a printed or use it in your newsletter. What have you you need? Doesn't know what's going on with that image. Is it big enough to do what you want to do or is it not? So that's just a little ditty on that. So let's take a look at another image that's really small. This is me and Jack Davis teaching at Photo Shot World in 2008. Me thinks he did a little bit of retouching in the old waste area, probably for both of us, which is totally fine is leasing her blonde days. So let's say somebody emailed us this image and we want to print this baby out. Well, let's see how many pixels we've got to work with. So let's come up to the image menu. Choose resize image size boy. Howdy. We don't have a whole lot going on here. We've got 551 pixels by 700 so let's just give it a shot, See what we can do. So re sample images turned off. Now, you know already now that any kind of decent print starts at 240 pixels per inch. So if I just enter 240 into the resolution field, I see that Oh, giddy. I can have a postage stamp. Yea, we're gonna end up with a A two by three is well, we've got but hopefully just with that illustration right there you can see how useful this dialogue boxes. So that's how you can affect resolution without changing quality. And also learn what size print you have enough pixel to make within your image. And if you don't want to remember anything that I just said in that whole resolution segment, you can make the print dialog box kind of do the same thing. Okay, so let's say we've got this image right here. We're not even gonna look at the Immerse Eyes Dialog box we're not gonna crop it. We're not gonna change resolution. We're just going with the printer. Do all of that so we could choose file print. Okay, so let's say we want to print this image. We don't have any idea about size. Whatever. So what you can do is choose a printer here. Then you would choose the paper size that you want to print on. I'm a little bit restricted in the paper size menu just because of this particular printer. But you can choose your print size right here. Let's say I want to make an eight by 10 out of that. Well, apparently I do indeed have enough pixels to make it eight by 10. But if we compare it to the original image, we've got some cropping that has trying to figure out how to show you the edge of the other one. Well, anyway, if you let the print dialog box do your re sizing for you and you're just telling it Hey, I'm gonna send you to this size piece of paper. You do what you need to to make it fit. Well, then elements will if it's not the right aspect ratio elements will crop it for you, and you'll have absolutely no control over that kind of thing. So if you are doing your own prints at home, I would go the crop tool method rather than just let the print dialog box do your re sizing according to the size of the paper that you pick because it's going to do whatever it has to to make that image that size. So you're going to get some unexpected cropping going on. Now you'll notice that there's no Resolution Field here, so I can't tell what resolution I'm gonna get. But there is a way to find that out. If we click the more options button, and this would just be to check and make sure, you know, is that gonna print it like 72 pixels per inch? What is it gonna print out? You can click this more options button down toward the bottom of the print dialog box, and I believe if you choose custom print size and then you turn on the scale to fit in media. I have sworn somewhere in here. It actually showed you a resolution field, but I guess not. But that's another way that you can do it right there. You can just come into this extra dialogue box and say scale to fit media. If per chance. You ended up with some white edges around here. Like if you picked a piece of paper and the image really wasn't big enough toe to print it that size that you could come into. The more options choose custom print size and this turn on scale to fit media and then elements is gonna resize it, however much it needs to. So there used to be a resolution field in here. I really It really did used to be in there so you could kind of check to see oh, if it was gonna be okay if it was over 240. But I don't see that in here anymore. So that just means that you should do your own cropping before you print. So any questions on that part? I know that was a little bit technical, but it is good for you guys to know that stuff. Do you have a number or like uploading images to a website so that people just can't grab them? And it's a lower resolution, but it still comes up on the screen at an okay resolution. Okay, so when you're dealing with on screen resolution, doesn't matter at all. So you would just wanna ratchet down the pixel dimensions and not care about resolution? I never post anything on the web bigger than 800. 600. That's not big enough for anybody to do anything with. Really? Because if they downloaded 800 pixel by 600 pixel image, even if they could been more than you do with it, they're going to be in that same situation of that picture of Jack and I, they're gonna be able to print a poster sand. I mean, at most, they might be able to use that image in some kind of other piece that they're making. There's only gonna be suitable for on screen you, so it becomes far less valuable when you just don't give them very many pixels to steal any questions on that. Jim, you know, Lisa, we are getting a ton of questions. Really? Asking your advice is to you know, Marie asked. I have I want to do a 20 by 24 20 by 30 real large scale work. What what resolution would I need to supply a printer with? But I think it kind of depends on the printer. Would it does appear on the printer. And if you're having somebody else print your image, asked them what resolution they want. And if they don't know, run for folks like the online labs. Like in picks dot com. They don't even want you to resize your images because their printers handle all that. So you send them the biggest size, pixel dimensions that you have. Not a raw image. None of these folks let you upload raw images. So you would If you are shooting and wrong, you would open and elements and do your color correction you're cropping. And then don't even worry crop without entering a resolution into that field. Just crop for aspect ratio, crop for shape for composition. Leave the resolution alone because if you took a high quality picture in your camera, is gonna have a slew of pixels. So then you say that as the highest quality J pig you can. So how do you do that file Save as pick Jay Peg from the pop up menu. I'm gonna throw this on the desktop do not include an element organizer click save. And in this dialog box, you're going to grab this quality slider and drag it all the way to the right click. OK, these options don't matter. Down here, it'll click OK, And that that's the image you're gonna upload to those online labs or toe Walmart or to the drug store or to your local camera store. And then when you upload that file that that online interface for that particular company will walk you through picking the size. And if you happen not to have enough pixels to make them small enough to print high quality at that size you picked all of those websites will give you some kind of a message saying who alert thing is not gonna look like you want it to look. So then you could choose a slightly smaller size, but those guys would much rather handle resolution with their own printers than having you mess with it. But as photographers and you know, designers to it is, in my humble opinion, so very important to understand what is going on in your images of what is this resolution measurement. When do you need to worry about it? You only need to worry about when you print online. It doesn't matter at all pixel dimensions, because online is the monitors or the display device. The driver, the hardware that's in that device that is controlling the size of the pixels on that particular device, you cannot control them in elements or a photo shop.