Photoshop reducing art quality, creating blurry prints.

[Emilywallartwork]

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? 

[JJMack]

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.

[Emilywallartwork]

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

[War Unicorn]

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

[Emilywallartwork]

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

[Leslie Moak Murray]

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

[Emilywallartwork]

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. 

[davescm]

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]

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

[JJMack]

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

[Emilywallartwork]

i took photos of the artwork with my camera, i don't mind the paper texture showing. I don't know how to attach photos here, any advice on that?

[jane-e]

"I don't know how to attach photos here, any advice on that?"

Hi

Click the Insert Photo button in the Reply window to attach your photo.

~ Jane

[davescm]

It looks like you have been doing some resizing as well as background removal, otherwise both those images would show at the same size on screen when set to 100% zoom. You have shown neither at 100% in your screenshot - one is over 100% the other aound 40%. What settings did you use to resize?

Dave

[JJMack]

Very different size image posted one scaled  to107% is the same size on screen as the other image scaled to 40.1%

[Emilywallartwork]

first I open the image, and then drag it onto my ps canvas that's set to 13x19 inches. The photo pastes quite large onto this dispite the size, so after removing the background, I use transform>scale to just scale it down to the size I want the print to be in relation to the paper, which is the same size as the canvas. 

[JJMack]

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. 

[Emilywallartwork]

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?~

[D Fosse]

Your mistake here is assuming physical dimensions have any relevance in Photoshop. They don't. In Photoshop, it's just pixels - how many pixels wide by how many pixels high. That's the size of the file.

In your example one is shown at 107%, and the other at 40.1%. That means those are two very different images. One of them has been resampled quite substantially.

You need to realize the significance of viewing at 100%. It's not just a nice round number. It means something very important: exactly one image pixel is represented by exactly one screen pixel. That's a 1:1 representation on screen, and that's the only way to reliably judge sharpness.

On screen scaling will soften the image. Always judge at 100%.

[D Fosse]

One more thing. Whenever you resample a file - not just screen scaling, but actual document pixels - it's common practice to re-sharpen slightly to compensate for the inevitable softening in the resampling process. This has nothing to do with Photoshop, but is inherent in the process of remapping an image to a different pixel size. And when you do this, it is essential that you view at 100% so that you can reliably assess the result, for all the reasons mentioned above.

[davescm · Accepted solution]

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

[D Fosse]

Excellent demonstration, Dave. I've been meaning to make an illustration like this, but never got around to it.

[jane-e]

Davescm wrote:

"Finally use Image >Image Size  to make the image your required print size but do not check resample."

Can you add one more image to make this complete, Dave? A 10×10 with Resample unchecked?

~ Jane

[davescm]

That is the point Jane.  With resample unchecked it will remain a 16 x 16 pixel image and will not become a 10 x 10 image. However due to the ppi change the pixels will print smaller.

Dave

[jane-e]

“That is the point Jane.”

Yes, I know, Dave, but I misspoke, sorry. I meant that it needed the "no resample, just change the ppi" as you did it. I think this now makes your illustration perfect, and thanks for adding it!

~ Jane

[Emilywallartwork]

this is what I've been doing to print 6 onn ach page. Can I still do this, but just  use the method you said to size the images?