Beginner Crop, resize, ppi for A4 print

[Phil-D]

Edit- Not sure if this should have gone in Talk Printing and Presentation

If I want to print an image at A4 is there an optimum size?

Do I crop and resize or resize and crop or just crop and not resize at all?

When I crop do I keep the 300ppi or change to???

Does it matter?

Probably things I should know by now but I've only ever printed the odd shot before.

Anything I should know about printing at A4 would be greatly appreciated........but please keep it simple , thanks

 

[Nod]

If I'm planning on printing at A4, I usually crop to the correct size at 300 dpi/ppi. In PhotoShop the Crop tool gives you dimension, unit and resolution options so I choose 297mm wide x 210mm tall (or t'other way round!) and 300 pixels per inch.
I usually do edge to edge prints and set the overlap to be minimal while still giving full coverage on the paper - some experimentation may be required! If I want/need an exact fit to A4 with no losses, I'll do an A4 print on A3 paper but that does need an A3(+) printer.

 

[Phil-D]

If I'm planning on printing at A4, I usually crop to the correct size at 300 dpi/ppi. In PhotoShop the Crop tool gives you dimension, unit and resolution options so I choose 297mm wide x 210mm tall (or t'other way round!) and 300 pixels per inch.
I usually do edge to edge prints and set the overlap to be minimal while still giving full coverage on the paper - some experimentation may be required! If I want/need an exact fit to A4 with no losses, I'll do an A4 print on A3 paper but that does need an A3(+) printer.

Thanks for the reply Nod

Yesterday I nipped into a local shop, for a pound each they printed me a couple of photos at A4 onto A3 paper, one looked better than the other and she did say it could be down to how I'd cropped and resized.

I wasn't expecting amazing prints for a quid but for what I was after they're fine.

I've just had a quick go, doing it the way you've described, that gives me 3613 pixels W and 2555 H @ 300 ppi. The two shots I had done, one was 1600 W the other only 1024 W, the later being the size I use to post to TP,

It'll be Monday now but I'll go back with the one that wasn't as good, cropped to the correct size, see how it tuns out, cheers

 

[redhed17]

If I were printing large, then I would just crop to the (in this case A4) ratio, 210 x 297, and let the printer (person or machine ) sort it out. Give them too many pixels rather than too few if possible.

Problems only appear if you are trying to print a low resolution image large as you have found, either because it is from a low res camera or a large crop, where there may not be enough pixels for 240-300 dpi and a reasonable size. You can interpolate and increase the resolution on low res images, but too large an increase may not give great results printed large.