Essentials Cafe

 Hello all. I've had essentials 4 for a few months now and I have some questions.

What does it mean when a layer icon is red? It seemed to be "locked", or unable to be painted on.

Also, what is an acceptable resolution for printing? Is there a maximum resolution for essentials 4? I couldn't find any info in the manual.

I tried printing a psd (photoshop file, over 12mb) at staples and I wasn't impressed with the quality. Individual pixels were clearly visible even at letter size.

The original file was somewhere around 900 ppi. Is this too low? What settings should I make future files to achieve smoother printed results?

Thanks. 

Chakobsa,

Your file should produce from 200 to 300 pixels per inch.  You need to understand what this really means in terms of a digital file though.   In RGB ther are three colors with 256 shades of each one.   One byte (8 bits) represents a shade of 0 to 255 of that color.   Three bytes (8 bit words) make up the color of one pixel 256 x256x 256 = 16.6 million colors for a pixel.  

A 12 MB file would then have 12/3 = 4 million pixels at 3 bytes per pixel.   Consider that a DVD playing on a TV screen has about 160,000 pixels and a much larger picture and you can see that 4 million pixels  for an 8x10 should be more than enough, thoug it will look much sharper than the DVD.

A printer works different.  A dot on a print page is not a pixel.  It takes many dots to make a pixel look like a single color.  I assume that when you say you had 900 ppi you really mean it was printed at 900 dpi (dots per inch).  The dpi on the print gives it a smooth look so the dots can't be seen.   If you are seeing pixels, then your file is not 12MB or you have done something to make it blocky such as scale up a small picture or reduce the colors.

My Cannon printer prints at 1440 x 720 dpi and it does very well.  Check you file for size (12MB), that it is 24 bit color and that it looks correct on your screen when you zoom in to about 200% of what it would look like on the print.

Tolouse may have other suggestions as well.

 Ron

 

 

Hi chakobsa - Ron has already given you a technical brief on printing, which is fine, but let me tell you how I work on E4. Firstly if you print a big picture smaller you get good quality, if you make a small picture bigger bang goes your quality. All of the pictures I create are at screen resolution for painter essentials which is 72ppi, and depending on whether I am in portrait or landscape format I make my longest side anywhere from 3500 pixels to 5000 pixels, which is between 48" and 69". Once the artwork is done I save one version at the original size, which can be printed at any size up to the dimension I have shown in inches and the quality is fine for artwork, photography is another matter, and I work at least 300ppi. I then rename the file and save again at the size required for the forum, which is a maximum of 256kb, if you try printing that file you will be disappointed, you need to print the original size file. It is hard for me to be specific because we have not seen the image in question, nor know its dimensions. It does take longer to render these big files, but sometimes I am asked for a large print, and if the artwork is already between four feet and nearly six feet long, it is unlikely to be printed much bigger. So it just saves me time in the long run, but requires a great deal of hard drive space, but you can also save folders to cd rom, and file them to save space if you are limited.

 thanks artisan9.

As you have guessed I'm new to all this. Indeed when I zoom to anything over 100% on my monitor I see blockiness.

So then when I choose the canvas size, should I choose according to what size I might want my printout to be? My reference to ppi was during this stage, not the printing stage. The print was done by a staples employee. I merely watched and didn't know to offer any suggestions.

When I view at 100% (which is the actual size, or isnt it?) on my monitor everything looks good. Should I have chosen the resolution in dpi, or am I just completely lost?  (the manual is fairly useless in this dept) Can you give me some idea of what resolution and dimensions are normally used?  I don't plan on printing out 4' x 6' giants, maybe an 18" x 24" or so.

**Dumb newb question alert**  Should my canvas always fit on my screen, or is it normal to have to navigate around it?

 I just read toulouse's response!

Hi again chakobsa - I forgot to mention there are many types of paper on which to print, and many quality settings also, you need to ask for photo quality paper, glossy or semi matt - that's up to you, and make sure you are getting the highest quality setting when they print. It is entirely possible the staples employee knew little about print quality and just did a straight print on ordinary paper, which would clearly show the pixels, also you can put a large jpeg onto a disc and take it to any photo lab and they can print it as a photograph for you, which I often do for prints smaller than 20x30", this way the quality is stunning, but a little expensive sometimes, as always you get what you pay for. For large prints I use a large format pigment ink printer , so they can be printed onto paper, card, plastic, canvas, whatever, and the quality is superb.

Toulouse- it was printed onto semi gloss and matte. Both were not good.

So after reading your first reply, I gather the reason was because my original canvas size was smaller than letter size, which makes sense if at 100% the image fit onto my monitor (19")

So in regards to my other questions, should I as you say choose a large size to start so when it is printed smaller it would look ok?

How do I view on my monitor such a large size? Is it just a matter of zooming in and out? I have the intous tablet, but probably haven't scratched the surface of it yet.

How about the layers icon being red? What does that mean? Is there a limit to how many layers I can have?

BTW, here's a link to some of my (early) corel pieces:   http://tmcwilliams.com/aboutus.html 

P.S. no one has actually ordered any yet, so the details as far as file sizes and formats haven't been worked out yet!

 

 

Chakabosa,

A 12 MB file (uncompressed) size at 24 bit color (standard) indicates the original picture is a 4 Mega Pixel size (12/ 3bytes per pixel).  This should be more than enough to print an 8" x 10" picture and I have done it many times without pixelation (blockiness).

Tolouse discusses working with a large file size which can always be reduced thoug many need sharpening.  You can usually double the file size without much noticable quality loss in Corel Paintshop Pro using smart sizing.   I use a 10 MP camera and but I would suggest that 8MP or higher would do for your prints up to 18' x 24" .  This is especially true of paintings which really don't have much detail.   Remember that a 3000 x2400 pixel file at 10" x 8" is really 300 x 240 pixels per inch.  This is why I thought your 900 ppi size was dpi for printing.

In E4 or PSP you can zoom in or out as needed to work on the whole canvas (like auto painting) or some area.  In PSP you hold down the Alt key and use the scroll wheel on the mouse to zoom.  In E4 you can do it with Ctrl + and Ctrl - or I have my mouse and graphics tablet set to do this as well.  The mouse will zoom using the scroll wheel.   Hold the space key down to get a hand cursor and move the mouse or pen to move the picture around.

Hope some of this relates.

 

Yes indeed choose a large size preferably double the size of your intended print, then when it is printed it should be fine, to view on your monitor just use the magnifier icon, you can go up or down in size, or alternatively go to window on your top toolbar and choose there. I will investigate your layers question and come back to you, because I have not experienced a red layer as far as I can remember, and theoretically you should be able to use many layers but I don't understand why that would be necessary, so I will look at your site and come back to you, once I can see what you are trying to create it will be easier to comment.

 Thanks toulouse and artisan9 you've both been a big help and given me lots of answers.

I've had a look at the website and something seems to be wrong, it takes forever to download even on broadband, I cannot get any of the audio links to work, the story excerpts seem to have a text overlay obscuring most of the text, and the buttons for other pages are very slow and unresponsive, I did however manage to get your art page up after several minutes, and many attempts which were timed out, so at least I now can imagine what type of art you are doing, and can see how you are using multiple layers, the rest is not relevant at this stage because it is clearly a website under construction. Back later

Toulouse- this is not good.

I have viewed my site from several different pc and laptops and haven't had these problems you mentioned.

The audio clips may require quicktime, and sometimes you need to double click the play icon, but as far as the other problems you had, I am at a loss.

It is indeed under construction but your experience is very troubling to me! I need to contact my host to resolve this.

I just went to the site this morning (8/9/08) and did not have any problem.  I tried the music the home page (very nice artwork) and the Art page.   I can't get a larger version by clicking on the picture but I don't think that is available.   It all works well and displays correctly on my monitor.  I'm using 1280 x 1024 resolution and have 1.5Mb DSL for internet.  The pages downloaded quickly as well.  The music played on several songs I tried with very little delay.

Ron

 Whew!! Glad to hear it may have been an isolated incident. Thanks for the compliments artisan9.

My canvas photos are not very good, that's something I need to improve. I deliberately left the images small, but now I'm thinking of adding some closeups so you can get a taste of what they really look like.    

 Hey chakobsa I have the same problem with the red layer icons (the three vertically stacked sheets to the far right).  It seems like when I am using a brush like the 2b pencil, when I create a new layer as soon as I start to draw the icon goes from gray to red, and can not be drawn on.  I have actually tested starting with a thick paint brush on the layer first, undoing the stroke, and then drawing with the 2b just to get a new layer to work.  This works for me but is extremely annoying.