new to photoshop

[Darren274167520t4b]

Hi 

I'm still fairly new to working with adobe and i been having scratch disk problems. I have tried deleting some files and moving some to external hard drive but the problem still remains. I've been trying to make to photo good enough to print and i been its becoming pixelated once it goes to the larger sizes. The image right now is 6 inches by 4.5 inches and is 6000 pixels per inch.  

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Why are you using 6000 pixels per inch? There is not a printer that is going to print that resolution and your file now measures 36000 x 27000 pixels! Even if you could find a printer that could print 6000 pixels per inch - your eyes are never going to resolve it. So all those additional pixels are wasted.

For small prints, viewed close, reduce the resolution to around 300 ppi (there is a theoretical argument for Epson printers using 360ppi but in practice you won't see a difference of photographs)

As for the scratch disk, you should have at least 100GB free on whatever disk you use for scratch.

Dave

[Derek Cross]

Image > Image size.

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Yep, 6000 pixels per inch is a MASSIVE resolution. 300 is about the max you need for print. 

Your scratch disc should ideally be at least 20G at a bare minimum - more like 50 would help, but the bigger the better. Maybe plug in an external SSD and set that to be the scratch disk?

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer:: co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[Derek Cross]

The OP was using 6000 PPI!

[NB, colourmanagement net]

Thanks for pointing outy my typo Derek, edited now. 

have a good week

neilB