Advice required - resolution / pixels, etc

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hodgy77

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I always have a bit of a mare when talking about resolution and printing so wondered if I could attempt to ask a question (I'm not quite sure how to ask what I'm after so may take a few attempts!) with regards to a project I'm thinking of doing in Photoshop CS3?

I was hoping to do an A4 sheet with some photos that I took at my daughter's 3rd birthday party, I think there'll be about 9 photos so 3 x 3 with a newspaper style heading, something like "The sun" style red top, but it'll say something else.

Anyway, my photos are 2592 x 3888 pixels but if I create a new blank canvas, A4 size at 300 pixels / inch, the image size is 2480 x 3508. Obvioulsy my images are already bigger than the blank page, so do I resize my images or make the canvas a lot bigger and then print A4 size?

I think what i'm asking is, will I lose any quality if I shrink my photos so that they fit 3 across and 3 down on a 2480 x 3508 A4 canvas?

Thanks for any help - let me know if I need to have another go and asking the question!
 
You will lose quality, because there will be few pixels, but because they will be printed smaller you won't be able to tell.
 
THanks to Craikeybaby and Chaz Photos.

But.....

Craikeybaby said:
You will lose quality, because there will be few pixels, but because they will be printed smaller you won't be able to tell.
Click to expand...

... I'm still unsure of this - I know I'll be printing A4, but it seems daft throwing away quality as who knows what else I'll do with it in the future.

I'm just wondering if I should try and create a canvas of A4 ratio, but big enough to handle 3 photos 2480 x 3508 across (so at least 7440 wide - more with gaps between photos). That way when I print A4 in theory it will re-size the image to print (so I won't gain by having it bigger) but it keeps my long term options open?

Any other comments?
 
There is no point creating a larger template as when it's printed at A4 the effect will be the same as resizing the images.

I'd go with the option that Chaz suggested as you can move the images around and re size as necessary.Doing it this way will maintain the optimum resolution irrespective of the final image size
 
Use copies of the original files to make the output file.

In my workflow I generate output files (for print or web) from the original files on the fly. You can save these output files incase you need to use them again, but you shouldn't get rid of your original files.
 
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