printing an image on four sheets

[asharpe]

Hi folks,

The maximum size that my printer can handle is 13x19. Is there a way in PL to print an image in four separate parts, so that each print is 1/4 of the image?

[Hoogo]

Yes, open the printer settings, choose "Poster" and adjust the zoom level.

[asharpe]

Thanks, that looks like it will work fine. It was a little non-intuitive the way it decides how many pieces (left and right swipe, then choose fit to page -- I guess a simple text box for the number of pieces would have been easier to understand), but I'm glad there is a facility for doing it.

[asharpe]

Ah. Ok, this will not work for me, unfortunately. It appears that it gives me a 5% image overlap on each of the prints. I need each print to *only* have the part of the image that it should have; I want no overlap. That's why I didn't try Poster in the first place; normally, that mode makes it so you can cut out the pieces and fit them together, which is of course easier with overlap. I don't want that; each should simply be a portion of the picture, and no more. Can this be done? Perhaps I can specify the width of the gutter so there is no overlap?

[bkh]

In that case, you could use "Tile image" to split your image (tick "Show tiled images" to open the image parts in separate windows) and print these images one after the other. You could even use "Create multipage document" to merge these image parts into a multipage document so that you only have to set the print options once.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[asharpe]

Hmm. Using Tile Image (under Web is where I found it), it asks me to save images, and only gives me gif, jpg, and png as choices. The original is a 16bit greyscale tiff image; why do I have to save these other images? Splitting is fine; I would have preferred either layers or the option to save in the same format as the original. I use QuadTone RIP to print, and it only accepts tiff, and going through several formats will lose fidelity.

I suppose I can manually split the image using crop and rulers and guides; I was hoping that there was an automatic way.

[bkh]

Hmm. Using Tile Image (under Web is where I found it), it asks me to save images, and only gives me gif, jpg, and png as choices. The original is a 16bit greyscale tiff image; why do I have to save these other images?

You don't have to save – "show image" opens the split parts in windows. However, the images are 8 bit only (I guess that should be ok for printing?). Do you need TIFFs to print, or can you print to your RIP from PL?

Splitting is fine; I would have preferred either layers or the option to save in the same format as the original. I use QuadTone RIP to print, and it only accepts tiff, and going through several formats will lose fidelity.

Well, the tool is really intended for web pages, but conversion form PNG to TIFF is lossless, so that should not be a problem.

I suppose I can manually split the image using crop and rulers and guides; I was hoping that there was an automatic way.

Using "Change Layer Size", iIt would still be possible to write an action to create four split layers automatically.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[asharpe]

No, dropping half the information in the file is unacceptable for printing. I have a completely 16bit workflow from out of camera to print (which is one of the major reasons that I use PL); I don't want to lose that. In addition, since printing a quarter of the image into the same size as a whole image means that the resolution will be reduced; that's the time where I absolutely do not want to lose half the information in the file by printing at 8 bits.