printing digital images

[abuelito]

i just got a new sony dsc w7. lotsa pixels. the image that dhows up in photoshop elements 3 is as huge. so when i try to get it a printable size, it looks like all those pixels vanish, and i am at screen res, 72x72. so how do i do this and keep all that high quality?

[jar_e]

I'm not quite sure what your asking, but this is the wrong thread. I'm sure a mod will move this so the help forum where you'll get alot better answers then mine! Welcome to the boards!

[Lara]

Welcome Paul!

We moved your post over to help.

[another view]

I'm not exactly sure that I know what the question is either but I'll try:

Monitors don't actually care about dpi; the size that you see the image displayed on the monitor depends on the resolution that your monitor is set at. A common monitor resolution is 1024x768 so if your image is reduced to 600x400 you're looking at about 1/4 of the screen. Just so happens on a 17" monitor that this is fairly close to a 4x6 print size. But the world of digital images displayed on a monitor and digital prints is very different. Starting with the standard rule of 300dpi you'll need 1200x1800 pixels to get a good 4x6 print. This same resolution is much bigger than what you'd see on the monitor.

Point is, you need a much bigger file size to print than you do to view an image on a monitor. 300dpi is a little conservative and some will say it's fine to use less but it's a good starting point.

When I make a print, I always prepare the file in Photoshop for whatever size print I'm having made. As above, if it's a 4x6 I give the lab a 1200x1800 pixel file, sized to 4x6 at 300dpi. Larger files are just larger numbers.

If the image is too big to be seen on the screen, just reduce the size that you're viewing at (in percentage). At the top of the screen, click on View, then Navigator. You'll have a little window showing the whole image with a slider at the bottom that you can adjust the size that you're looking at. This does not change the file size, just how you're seeing it. I have Photoshop CS, but this is probably the same or very close with Elements 3.

Does this help?