Participant

Question

How to keep my image intact for print

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 29, 2020
5 replies
582 views

I created colored smoke using an action, so how can I keep my image intact for printing? If i flatten or merge, it obviously changes as the color fills are merged.

Can anyone help?

Thanks

This topic has been closed for replies.

melissapiccone

Community Expert

You can save the image as a tranparent png if you need to convert it to something other than a PSD. A png is a flattened file and will maintain your transparency. Where are you printing? You can also just flatten it with a white background - will be the same as printing on white paper. It would help if you shared a screenshot of your file including all the layers.

Melissa Piccone | Adobe Trainer | Online Courses Author | Fine Artist

Norman Sanders

Legend

If you see a difference when flattening the file, I wonder whether using Preferences > Performance > Legacy Composting solves the probem.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Can you show us a screenshot of your PS workspace including Layers panel? I'm also puzzled why flattening makes any difference. It shouldn't unless you did something wild & crazy.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

davescm

Community Expert

Are you printing yourself on printer connected to your PC or sending the document on to be printed elsewhere?

If the former, just press the print button, no need to merge.

On a different issue, I am not sure why you are seeing a difference flattened. Are you comparing before and after at 100% zoom (only the 100% zoom view is accurate)?

Dave

C

cryder44Author

Participant

I will be sending it as a PSD file to someone to print. But I need a PNG as well, and the first pic below is what I want, but after merge (not flatten...lol), it looks like the bottom pic.

Prolly should have never used the word flatten, because I merge, rarely do I ever flatten lol.

Thanks for all the help too!

davescm

Community Expert

Your zoom level us 8%.

You must check before and after at 100% zoom. The preview of layer blends at less than 100% is inaccurate as Photoshop actually blends using each layer at the reduced screen image pixel size. This means that groups of image pixels are averaged on each layer then used for blending. In addition, at zoom levels less than 66.7%, 8 bits/channel is used for the preview even when the image is 26 bit. All this is done for speed. When you merge, every image pixel on each layer is used and therefore it matches the accurate preview that you see when you view at 100% zoom which maps 1 image pixel onto 1 screen pixel. On most images the difference is hardly noticeable but on some, particularly with fine pointcdetail or noise, the difference is very visible.

In short always check your image blend and adjustments at 100% zoom.

Dave

JJMack

Community Expert

Print from your layered document. You have your work and image intact. Why flatten?

JJMack

C

cryder44Author

Participant

Im a little newer to this, so forgive me for what may seem to be a stupid question. So your saying a printer will print it out as it appears still in layers?

Thanks

War Unicorn

Community Expert

Yes.

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