Participating Frequently

Answered

Photoshop reducing art quality, creating blurry prints.

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 13, 2020
6 replies
10784 views

I'm trying to create watercolour prints of my artwork. So far I've been opening the photo of my artwork in photoshop as a smart object, and then dragging it onto a blank PSD that I've created at A3+ size, since this is the size of the paper I'm using.

I spend a while carefully rubbing out around the edge of each painting and removing the background, so that only my subject prints. I'm printing around 4-6 of each on one sheet of paper, so the artwork itself is not blown up (which would explain it) it's generally between 3-6 inches

I'm printing at 300ppi. The image I'm working on right now (before having the background removed) is 2986 x 3875 pixels, and 240dpi. All my other images are similar.

I've noticed that if I open the original image (still with its background) in Lightroom, when zooming in, it's sharp. But if I open a PSD of the image with the background removed, the subject is slightly blurry.

I have tried printing in lightroom, however the prints keep coming out extremely oversaturated. Either way, using photoshop and removing the background seems to be ruining my sharpness. What can I do?

Problem or error

Correct answer davescm

You sent me the two screenshots and they showed nothing untoward.

There is one more possibility that I can't test here as I use an Epson P5000 printer , not a Canon.

The Canon print driver could be scaling internally and, in doing so, softening the image.

So as a final step, try this:

a. Use Photoshop Image >Image Size with resample checked and resample set to Automatic to change the resolution to 300ppi which IIRC was the "native " driver resolution for Canon. Try a test print.

If that is still soft try a small amount of print sharpening.

So after step a. (resampling to 300ppi) put all the layers in a single smart object and go to Filter > Sharpen >Unsharp mask. Try Amount 90% Radius 1.0 and Threshold 0%

Try a second test print and compare the output to the unsharpened Photoshop version (step back in history)

Dave

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks everyone for your advice and replies. I'll report back tomorrow with the results.

JJMack

Community Expert

You only see your actual image when you view your images actual pixels that is zoomed to 100% size. At any other zoom percentage you are not newing you image at all you are viewing an image that was quickly scaled from you image. At some percentages the scaling can be quite poor. The eraser tool can easily create soft feathered edges. Many eraser setting will produce soft feathered edges.

JJMack

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

but feathered edges wouldn't make the whole thing blurry, right? i am dragging the original image onto a ps canvas that's set to 13x19 inches. it starts large, and then I scale it down to the size I want the print. why would scaling down reduce quality?~

davescm

Community Expert

You asked - "why would scaling down reduce quality?"

The answer is - it has to. The application has to decide, based on algorithms , how to squeeze information spread across a number of pixels into less pixels - but given the constraint that any single pixel can contain only one colour value.

Take the simple example below which is an X using a grid of 16 x 16 pixels. To reduce that to 10x10 pixels using the various algorithms in Photoshop gives the attached results. Effectively the information in the original 256 pixels has been thrown away and replaced by calculated information in the new 100 pixels. Now you might think look at this and think that BiLinear would always be the one to go for, but in real world photographic images that is not the case and it can introduce some unpleasant artifacts.

My suggestion for your images would be to open your art image directly. Then erase or use a mask to address the edges the way you want them. Finally use Image >Image Size to make the image your required print size but do not check resample. That way, all that will change , will be the ppi value which is stored alongside the image and is used by the printer to calculate how big to make the print. The image pixels will remain untouched and completely free of the artifacts shown shown above.

Dave

davescm

Community Expert

Are you checking on screen sharpness at 100% zoom (i.e. one screen pixel mapped to 1 image pixel)? Any zoom less than that is combining multiple image pixels into single screen pixels which Lightroom does differently to Photoshop.

Dave

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

i have checked it a lots of zoom chnages, including 100%. here's a comparison

JJMack

Community Expert

You would have to attach your image so we can download them to see what you are dealing with. The site scales the images you post here. We do not see what you see. We are presented with scale images and I have no idea as to how well they were scaled. It also look like your scanner lighting pick up you paper texture which has some effect on the quality of the scanned painting

JJMack

Leslie Moak Murray

Community Expert

I'd like to see a screenshot of what you mean.

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

here's the comparison, the subject with background removed on the left, and the original on the right. the difference is very apparent when printng.

War Unicorn

Community Expert

Adding to what JJ said, what techniques are you using to eliminate the background?

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

I'm using the eraser tool and a pen tablet. the blurryness is the whole subject though, not the edges

JJMack

Community Expert

It sound like the process you used to remove the background employed feathering that soften the subject extracted edges of your watercolor. The edges have a feather transparency and will blend with any background is below the extraction the edges will have soft feathered look.

JJMack

Emilywallartwork Author

Participating Frequently

You may be right about the edges, but i used a reasonably hard brush with
minimal feathering. the issue of blurring is more the whole image including
the centre, nowhere near where the rubber was used to remove background.
seems more like a resolution issue

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded