Digital Prints

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Mastering Digital Printing
A more sophisticated variation for making a mock-up is to output your actual image in a
low-resolution format. For larger sizes, you may need to tile the image. You can do that
with most page-layout and drawing programs or even in Photoshop if you add reference
grid lines. I sometimes make a tiled, black-and-white mock-up with my office laser printer.
The image can then be taped together and attached to the print backing sheet to evaluate
the overall effect.
Again, the purpose of this important step is to have a 100-percent-size mock-up of your
intended print that you live with for a while. I like to hang or tack them up in different
locations around my house over the course of several days. Whenever I walk by, I stop and
make a mental note. Once I’m satisfied with the image and print size, I’m ready for Step 2.
Step 2: Prep the File
Working in Photoshop CS, I verify my Color Settings RGB Working Space as Adobe RGB
(1998), my favorite. I also check my monitor calibration settings or calibrate the monitor
with one of the measured-calibration systems described in Chapter 4 again.
I organize my computer desktop with the appropriate folders and prepare to work on the
file. This particular image was in 35mm slide format, and I had it scanned on a film scanner
at my local photo lab at 4000 dpi. The 2592 × 1712-pixel file (I had pre-cropped a
smaller portion to use for this) is an 8-bit RGB TIFF, and the first thing I do after opening
it in Photoshop CS is Save As to the native PSD format. This now is my working file
(see Figure 8.7).
Figure 8.7 The original scan is saved
to a new file with a new name.