How to export image and preserve image size?

[Guest]

Hello,

I'm an artist and sometimes I create stencils or plan paintings with photoshop based on the canvas size I'm working with. In this particular instance I'm working with a 36x36 canvas in Photoshop 2019 for a stencil.

1. I need to export my created image to 36inx36in. My canvas and image both show 36x36 at 600dpi in the Photshop project. However, when I try to export it wants to resample and change the size. I can't enter any values - it seems no matter what selection I choose. Whats going on here?

2. To save on printing costs, I also need to export certain sections and retain it's size. Is cropping or exporting with the marguee tool best to preserve size and quality?

It's very frustrating when trying to get this finished and noticed all my exports are the incorrect size. Screenshots attached. (project images blocked for intellectual

property purposes).

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

You don't want to use Export for this size. Export is for small images, web and mobile devices. It's not intended, or designed, for print files of this size. Just use Save As.

The file is just pixels. That's what you need to watch. It has no size until you assign an (arbitrary) pixels per inch value.

21600 pixels = 36 inches at 600 ppi

21600 pixels = 72 inches at 300 ppi

21600 pixels = 18 inches at 1200 ppi

21600 pixels = 216 inches at 100 ppi

...and so on.

[Guest]

Thank you for the reply,

My mistake, I didn't see the .png the first time around for "save as". I really need to study photoshop more. I ended up just printing the project to .pdf to take to the print shop for large format printing. I haven't measured the prints yet -  but I always tell them to retain the size of the image. Guess I'll find out.