Setting Printing Options in Photoshop

Photoshop has several printing modes to choose from, depending on how much control you need and how much of a hurry you’re in. Here are your options:

-->Print One Copy (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+P, or Option+Shift+Ô+P on the Mac) is a quick way to print a hard copy using the default settings.

-->Print (Ctrl+P, or Ô+P on the Mac) pops up the standard Windows (or Mac) Print dialog box, with options to choose a new printer, select which pages to print, select the number of copies, and indicate whether to collate the output. The exact options available depend on what printer you are printing to.

-->Print with Preview (Alt+Ctrl+P, or Option+Ô+P on the Mac) opens an expanded Print dialog box that includes a preview window and many more options to choose from. You can even access the Page Setup dialog box from this dialog box if you want to change the orientation, paper size, or switch to a different printer. This dialog box is almost identical under the Windows and Mac operating systems. To set your print options, follow these steps:

1. Choose File➪Print with Preview.
The Print dialog box opens.

2. Use the Top and Left boxes in the Position area to indicate where you want the image to appear on the page.

3. To center the image, select the Center Image check box.

4. Select the Show More Options check box and choose Output from the drop-down list.
The other option on the drop-down list, Color Management, controls advanced proofing and color profile tasks. Note that any options that don’t apply to your selected printer are grayed out.

5. If you want to scale the image up or down, choose the scale percentage and/or enter height and width values in the Scaled Print Size area.
(This doesn’t change the physical dimensions of the image, just the print size.) Additional options include:

-->Show Bounding Box: Places the handles around the image area and allows for visual sizing.

-->Print Selected Area: Allows you to print only part of a large image.

-->Scale to Fit Media: Sizes your image to fit on a particular paper size.

6. Choose the printing options you want to apply:

--> Background: The area surrounding the printed image is called the background, not to be confused with the background color on the Colors palette or the background layer of an image. You can change this color from the default (white) to any other color. Clicking the Background button brings up the Color Picker tool. Black is often the best background choice if you are printing slides on a film recorder and want the area outside the image to remain dark.

-->Border: The dialog box that pops up lets you specify a black border to be printed around an image in any width from 0 to 10 points, 0 to 3.5 millimeters, or 0 to 1.5 inches.

-->Bleed: A bleed is an image that extends right up to the edge of the paper size on one or more edges. In effect, you’re cropping inside the image area. In practice, most printers don’t actually print right to the edge, so to bleed, say, a 5-x-7-inch image, you need to print it on a larger sheet of paper, such as 8 x 10.
Clicking the Bleed button opens a dialog box in which you enter a width in inches, millimeters, or points inside the edge of the image.

-->Screen: When you click the Screen button, you see the Halftone Screens dialog box which lets you create halftones for color separation.

-->Transfer: This is an advanced function used for prepress operations to compensate for the change in dot sizes when halftoned images are printed on a press.

-->Interpolation: This option is only available with some printers, particularly PostScript Level 2 (or higher models), to even out the jagged appearance of diagonal lines in lowresolution images. Just be aware that interpolation can only help so much and in some cases, it can be damaging.

7. Select options for marking the area outside the print area. These include several items that appear only when the print area is smaller than the paper size:

-->Calibration bars: This option adds an 11-step grayscale bar outside the image area when printing to a paper size that is larger than the image area. You can use calibration bars to gauge how accurately the gray tones of an image are being reproduced.

-->Registration marks: Registration marks are handy when you’re printing with multiple plates for color separations, such as those used in four-color or duotone processes. These marks help keep the plates aligned so the image is printed properly.

-->Corner crop marks: Clicking this box prints crop marks at the corners of the image, which indicate where trimming should take place.

-->Center crop marks: These crop marks show where the page will be trimmed at the top, bottom, and each side.

-->Description: To include a description on a printout, choose File➪File Info and enter the text you want to appear. Then check the Description box in this dialog box.

-->Labels: Selecting this check box prints the document name and channel name on the image.

8. Set the options that apply when you’re printing to film for color separations, if that’s the case.
Be sure to talk to your service bureau or offset printer representative for their recommendations.
Here are your choices:

-->Emulsion Down: The side of a film or photographic print paper that is light sensitive is called the emulsion side. You must specify whether you want the emulsion side up or side down for film output. Emulsion Down is the most common film output choice, although some publications may request Emulsion Up. The default is Emulsion Up (the check box is not selected). This option is not available with all printers.

-->Negative: When you’re printing an image on paper, you usually want a positive image, in which case you should not select the Negative check box. However, if you’re printing the image on film (as is the case if you’re printing color separations), your printer will probably request a negative. To print a film positive, do not select this check box.