Printing large posters on letter size paper

[_David_Warden_]

I would like print out a large 10x8 foot poster on a letter size printer from photoshop. Is there an action to break up the poster into letter size sheets or is there a program I can get to do this for me?

Thanks,

David

[_Richard_Rose_]

David,

I've seen this question come up occasionally on the Web. I can't remember it coming up before on this forum.

There is not a good way to "automate" such a "tiling" process in Photoshop. You can do it manually by selecting the various sections needed for each "tile" of the printing process, copying them and pasting into a new Photoshop document for printing, one by one. Setting up rules to divide up the original large document makes this easier, but it's still a manual process.

Page layout programs such as Quark XPress and InDesign, even Illustrator have the ability to "tile" the printed output exactly in the way you need. Take the Photoshop document into one of those to do the job. They also compensate for the fact that most printers don't print to the edge of the sheet by automating the necessary overlap needed when assembling the composite poster.

Rich

[Paul_Cutler]

I second that. InDesign is the way I tile. It can be done in PS but it's a lot more work.

pbc

[Ed_Hannigan]

Ditto the above, but look at your Printer's Options. Some have a Poster or Tiling mode that will let you do this.

[Guest]

It is easy enough in PSCS3. In the Print dialogue box under "Position" deselect the "Center Image" check box. Now you can break up your 8'x10' image into 7.5"x10" chunks by simply telling PSCS3 to print the image differently each time.

E.g. first print with the settings at Top 0 inches and Left 0 inches. Click Print, then tell it to print again and reset settings to Top 0 inches and Left (0 - 7.5 = -7.5 inches). Click Print, then tell it to print again and reset settings to Top 0 inches and Left (-7.5 - 7.5 = -15 inches). Continue.

After you have printed the top row, tell it to print again and reset settings to Top (0 - 10 = -10 inches) and Left 0 inches. Click Print, then tell it to print again and reset settings to Top -10 inches and Left (0 - 7.5 = -7.5 inches). Click Print, then tell it to print again and reset settings to Top -10 inches and Left (-7.5 - 7.5 = -15 inches). Continue.

Someone will correct me if my math is imperfect, but you should get the idea. It is manual, not automated, but works fine for folks with only Photoshop.

[mirisue]

Hi and thanks for this tip.  It was time consuming and I have to fenegle the measurments but I hate moving from program to program, and this was very helpful!

[_Quentin_Tarantado_]

Would you believe inserting the picture into MS Excel does the job nicely?

[_Phos_four_dots_]

I'm almost certain there's a script that will ease the process of doing this, so I'd have a poke around in the scripting forum. <br /> <br />Also, I know from experience that it's always wise to build in some overlap into each of the tiles. <br /> <br />If you're going to do it manually, the following image I created a while back for somebody else with a similar question may help you understand the methodology. <br /> <br />Click on image for full-size version: <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1emnJwnrX6eXZrNuJy3bQCRGztPEm0" /></a> <img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1emnJwnrX6eXZrNuJy3bQCRGztPEm0_thumb.jpg" border="0" />

[Welles Goodrich]

PosteRazor 1.5
Cuts poster size images down to be printed.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20738/posterazor

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Oooo, good one, Welles. Forgot about PosteRazor.

[Ed_Hannigan]

Check to see if your printer has a Poster or Tile function. Many do and will do it for you. Should appear in the Printer Properties.

[evanb49211654]

For future reference it is a lot easier now to just print it in illustrator with General > Scaling > Tile Full Pages

[Cinnavon]

Save the file as PDF, then open it with Adobe Reader. 
Print > Page Sizing & Handling > Poster