Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard for creating graphics, is a powerful tool that will allow you to create interesting images. Once you have finished manipulating your creations with Photoshop's tools, you usually have two options. You can keep the image for digital use on a website or print it. If you want to print it, you will want to make sure the printer does not cut off any part of your image. You can take a few necessary precautions to prevent this.
Instructions
1. Take the image you want to print and open it in Photoshop. If the Photoshop window the image is in does not show the rulers, click "View" on the application bar at the top of the screen. It will give you a list of options to choose from; click "Rulers." This will bring up virtual rulers inside the Photoshop window where you are working. Since most printers crop everything outside the one-inch margin, you will want to make guides with the rulers at the one-inch margin all the way around the image. Do this by clicking the ruler and dragging lines out into the image; these lines are not a part of the image and will not show up in printing. You will need to place four lines on the image--two horizontal and two vertical--at the one-inch margins. Use the rulers to help you measure. These lines will create a "safe zone" for printing. Anything outside these lines has the chance of getting cropped off in the printing process.
2. At this point, you will know if your image is safe for printing or not. If it is safe, continue on to Step 3. But if there are parts of your image appearing outside the safe zone, you will need to resize your image. Make sure you have all your layers selected (in the Layers swatch). Click "Edit" in the application bar. Scroll down and click "Free Transform." This allows you to resize the entire image (even if you have multiple layers). To constrain proportions, make sure to hold down the "Shift" button while resizing. Get your image to a size that fits inside the ruler guides, or "safe zone." Click "Enter" once you have a size that fits.
3. If you have your image completely inside the safe zone, you are ready to print it. Click File > Print from the application bar. It will bring up a dialogue box that gives you several options. Even though your image is already inside the safe zone, you cannot be too careful, which is why Photoshop gives you an extra option to scale your image down for safe printing. Check the box that is labeled "Scale to Fit Media." This guarantees your image is not cropped in the printing process. Finally, click "Print" and your image should come out of the printer just the way you want it.
Tags: your image, safe zone, cropped printing, cropped printing process, have your
