PHOTOSHOP

Get More Accurate Print Size Previews In Photoshop

Written by Steve Patterson. In a previous tutorial, The 72 ppi Web Resolution Myth, we looked at a
belief held by many digital photographers and web designers today that images destined for the web
or for viewing on-screen need to be saved in Photoshop at a resolution of 72 pixels per inch. Some
believe it allows their images to display properly on the web. Others believe a 72 ppi resolution
prevents people from downloading and printing high quality versions of the image. However, we
learned in that tutorial that neither of these reasons hold true, and that 72 ppi hasnt actually been a
useful "standard" in over 20 years!

As we learned in that tutorial, computer displays today all have screen resolutions higher than 72
pixels per inch, and we proved it by learning an easy way to find your monitors actual screen
resolution. In this tutorial, well learn how to take that information, give it to Photoshop, and enjoy
much more accurate on-screen previews of how our photos will look when printed!

Version Requirements: To get the most from this tutorial, youll need to be using Photoshop CS4 or
higher and thats because well be using a feature that Adobe first introduced in CS4. It is not available
in CS3 or earlier. Ill be using Photoshop CS6 here but any version from CS4 and up will do.
Download our tutorials as print-ready PDFs! Learning Photoshop has never been easier!
The Problem With Photoshops Print Size View

Photoshop lets us view our images at just about any zoom size we like using the Zoom Tool, and it also
includes a few automatic zoom options under the View menu in the Menu Bar, like Fit on Screen,
which zooms the image to whatever size is needed for it to fit entirely within the dimensions of your
display, and Actual Pixels which instantly jumps you to the 100% zoom level.

Yet one zoom option under the View menu has remained a mystery to most Photoshop users over the
years Print Size. Im calling it a "mystery" to be polite, but most Photoshop users simply call it
"useless", a more accurate description. At least, its accurate if you dont know the two important
things were about to learn why its useless and how to fix it!

Like Apples original 72 pixel-per-inch screen resolution standard from nearly 30 years ago, the goal of
Photoshops Print Size view mode was to give us an accurate preview of how the image on your
screen will look when printed. The way its supposed to work is that when we choose the Print Size
command from the View menu, Photoshop instantly zooms the image to whatever level is needed for
it to appear on your screen at the same size it will appear on paper. For example, if youre working on
an image that will be printed as a 46, the Print Size command would display the image 4 inches x 6
inches on your screen. Not only would this help you visualize the final printed result, it would also
help when sharpening the image for output. At least, that was the plan.

Heres the problem. In order for the plan to work, Photoshop needs to know your computer displays
screen resolution so it can do the math and figure out the correct zoom level, but Photoshop doesnt
know your displays screen resolution and it has no way of finding that out on its own. So what does it
do? It just assumes your screen resolution is that good ol 72 pixels per inch nonsense when its really
much higher than that. What happens when we do the math using the wrong numbers? We get the
wrong answer, and in the case of the Print Size view mode, Photoshop ends up choosing the wrong
zoom level, resulting in a print size preview thats not even close to being accurate.

As an example, heres an image I currently have open in Photoshop. At the moment, its being viewed
at the 100% zoom level (young thinking woman photo from Shutterstock):

An image open in Photoshop at 100% zoom.

Ill open my Image Size dialog box by going up to the Image menu in the Menu Bar along the top of
the screen and choosing Image Size:

Going to Image > Image Size.

Here, in the Document Size section of the Image Size dialog box, where we set the size and resolution
of the printed version of the image, we see that my image is current set to print as a 46 (6 inches for
the width, 4 inches for the height):

The Document Size section shows us the size the image will print based on its resolution.

Now that we know how large the image will print, Ill click OK to close out of the Image Size dialog
box, and then Ill choose Photoshops Print Size view mode by going up to the View menu at the top of
the screen and choosing Print Size:

Going to View > Print Size.

According to how the Print Size view mode is supposed to work, Photoshop should instantly jump to
whatever zoom level is needed for the image to appear on my screen at the same size it will print,
which in this case would be 6 inches across and 4 inches from top to bottom. In other words, I should
be able to grab an actual 46 photo, hold it up to my screen and see that the size of the image on my
screen in Photoshop now matches the size of the photo.

And yet, thats not the case. My image is not being displayed at 6 inches x 4 inches on my screen. Its
actually being displayed much smaller. If I grab a ruler, I can quickly measure it and see that it appears
roughly 3.8 inches across and 2.5 inches top to bottom. Thats not even close to being an accurate on-
screen preview of the print size:

The image should be 64 inches on my screen. Somethings not right.

Lets look down in the bottom left corner of the interface where we see that Photoshop has set the
zoom level of my image to 24%. This, according to Photoshop, is the correct zoom level for making my
image appear 64 inches on my screen. Thats great, except that its obviously wrong. Why is it
wrong? Its because Photoshop is wrongly assuming that my computer monitors screen resolution is
72 pixels per inch:

The current zoom level appears in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Finding Your Actual Screen Resolution

How do we fix that? We find out what our computer displays actual screen resolution is and then we
give that information to Photoshop. First, we need to find our screen resolution using a simple test. If
youve already done this step from the previous tutorial and you have the information handy, you can
skip this part and move on to the next step.

To find your displays screen resolution, grab a ruler or tape measure (a tape measure is probably
easier). Then, measure the screens width, in inches, from left to right. Dont include any of the border
area around the screen. Measure only the screen itself. If you need to, round the measurement off to
a single decimal place. In my case, my screens width is 23.4 inches, but of course yours may be
different (computer monitor photo from Shutterstock):

Measure the width of your screen (not including the outer border).

Next, make sure your computer monitor is running at its native display resolution, which gives you the
actual number of pixels in your display from left to right and top to bottom. For example, a screen
with a native display resolution of 19201080 has 1920 pixels from left to right and 1080 from top to
bottom. The monitor Im using runs at 25601440. Whatever your monitors native display resolution
is, make sure its what you have it set to in your operating systems display options.

Then, simply take the first number in your monitors native display resolution, which gives you the
screen width in pixels, and divide it by your measured screen width in inches. This will give you the
actual screen resolution in pixels per inch. For example, Ill take the first number in my display
resolution, 2560, and divide it by my measured screen width in inches, which was 23.4. Using my
operating systems handy built-in calculator, 2560 23.4 = 109.4, which Ill round off to 109. So, using
this easy test, Ive quickly figured out that my displays screen resolution is 109 pixels per inch, not 72
pixels per inch like Photoshop had assumed. Again, your screen resolution may be different, but it will
certainly be higher than 72 ppi.
Giving The Screen Resolution To Photoshop

Now that we have our actual screen resolution, we need to enter it into Photoshop and we do that in
the Preferences. On a Windows PC, go up to the Edit menu at the top of the screen, choose
Preferences way down at the bottom of the list, and then choose Units & Rulers. On a Mac, go up to
the Photoshop menu, choose Preferences, then choose Units & Rulers:

On a PC, the Preferences are under the Edit menu. On a Mac, theyre under the Photoshop menu.

This opens the Preferences dialog box set to the Units & Rulers preferences, and heres where we find
the problem. The Screen Resolution option (directly below the Print Resolution option that we dont
need to worry about) is set by default to 72 pixels per inch, which is why the Print Size view mode
isnt working properly:

Photoshops default Screen Resolution value is 72 pixels per inch.

To fix the problem, simply replace the 72 with your correct screen resolution. In my case, its 109:

Enter your actual screen resolution.
Enabling OpenGL (Photoshop CS4 And Higher)

Dont close out of the Preferences dialog box just yet because theres one more quick thing we need
to do. Select Performance in the list of preference categories along the left of the dialog box:

Choose the Performance preferences.

If youre using Photoshop CS6 as I am, make sure the Use Graphics Processor option is checked (in
Photoshop CS4 and CS5, the option is called Enable OpenGL Drawing). This allows Photoshop to access
the OpenGL capabilities of your video card for advanced, hardware-accelerated screen rendering.
Theres a whole list of features this enables in Photoshop, but the one were most interested in here is
that it helps display a sharper, more accurate image at zoom levels other than 100% (like our Print
Size zoom level, for example). Note that if, for whatever reason, the option was not enabled and you
just enabled it now, youll need to close out of any open documents in Photoshop and then re-open
them for OpenGL to take effect:

Make sure Use Graphics Processor (CS6) or Enable OpenGL Drawing (CS4/CS5) is checked.
Trying The Print Size View Mode Again

Once youve entered in your actual screen resolution and made sure the OpenGL feature is enabled,
go ahead and close out of the Preferences dialog box. You should now have a working Print Size view
mode! To test it, Ill once again go up to View menu at the top of the screen and choose Print Size:

Going back to View > Print Size.

And this time, now that Photoshop knows what my actual screen resolution is, its able to figure out
the correct zoom level for my image to display 6 inches x 4 inches on my screen. This, combined with
the OpenGL features we made sure were enabled in the Performance preferences, gives me a much
more accurate preview of what my image will look like when printed:

The Print Size view mode now works more like it should.

If you remember, back when Photoshop was still thinking my screen resolution was 72 ppi, it chose an
incorrect zoom level of 24% for the Print Size view mode. This time, knowing what my screen
resolution really is, it was able to select a more accurate zoom level of 36.33% (yours may be
different):

Photoshop chose the correct zoom level this time for an accurate print size preview.

And there we have it! Thats how to easily find your displays actual screen resolution (not 72 ppi),
enter it into the Preferences, and get more accurate on-screen results from the Print Size view mode
in Photoshop!