custom poster i whant to make with photoshop

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

hi i whant to make a poster with photoshop and the size of the poster is going to be 36x48 so when i open up photoshop cs2 i go to file then new and it asks me for the width and the height so for width i put 48 and for height i put 36 in inches but i got 120-130 pictures i whant to put in the canvas. so how would i be able to do it really fast instead of useing the crop tool all the time so that it doesnt take me my entire life to make the poster.Also is 36x48 inches right if i whant to make a poster which is going to be 36x48 or do i have to change it? and if anybody would be really nice could you please just tell me the instructions on how to do this poster from start to finish. Thanks alot

[Phosąfour dots]

<http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b717f3>

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

ya but this is a new problem please help me

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

MItchell,

It sounds to me like you might want to start your Photoshop experience with a slightly less challenging project. Most of us started with smaller projects and worked our way up. But, if you must:

You need to know what your output requirements are - so when you start your 36 X 48 inch poster, it's at the proper pixel per inch resolution. That's going to somewhere between 100 and 300 pixels per inch and can drastically affect how big your file is and how easy it will be to work on.

The easiest way to build your file is to have your poster file open, then open the individual files you want to add, and then simply drag them from one document to the other, holding the Alt key down, which is the shortcut for the Move Tool. Each file you drag over will make a new Layer, which can then be Transformed to the size you want, and then masked with a Layer Mask to "crop" them in the new composition.

That's the basics of it. The more files you add, the bigger your overall file will get and the slower your computer will operate. Be sure to save early and save often.

This reminds me of the first real job composite for Sherwood Stereo I did back in 1995 with Ps 3.0 on a first generation PowerMac 7100 and 72 mb of ram with a huge one gig scsi drive for scratch disc. Applying ANY type of filter took at least 30 minutes. Saving took another 30 minutes. The studio was swept very clean back then.

[J_Ma...@adobeforums.com]

Create a master doc at 200 ppi, 36" x 48". I'd make 4 inch square (9 x 12 = 108 images) grid for the images. Go into prefs, and set your grid to 2 inches, with 1 subdivision. Then use the rectangle marquee tool on each image and with the shift key held down, draw a square crop and copy paste into your poster doc. Then make sure view... snap too... grid is checked. You should be able to use ctrl-t to transform each image pasted in to your poster. They should snap to the grid and with ctrl-t (free transform), you should be able snap them to the correct size.

[J_Ma...@adobeforums.com]

Nice Peter. ;)

You can also google "photomosaic" and see if there's some free software to help you out.

Be sure to save early and save often.

Yes yes yes.

[Phosąfour dots]

Simplify getting all those images into one document:

"Import folder as layers" Photoshop script:

<http://morris-photographics.com/photoshop/scripts/import-folder.html>

Save early, save often. Make a back-up copy!

:)

Oh, and I linked to your first thread because this thread really is just a continuation of the project. It's better to keep the dialogue all in one place. It avoids confusion and makes it easier to find.

[Phosąfour dots]

Oh, and one more thing.

The dictionary people still haven't added an 'h' to 'want.'

:)

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

thanks everybody im going to try everything thing you guys have told me to do hopefully it works.

[Phosąfour dots]

"This reminds me of the first real job composite for Sherwood Stereo I
did back in 1995 with Ps 3.0 on a first generation PowerMac 7100 and 72
mb of ram with a huge one gig scsi drive for scratch disc. Applying ANY
type of filter took at least 30 minutes. Saving took another 30 minutes.
The studio was swept very clean back then."

[Insert the hybrid sound of laughter and groaning here]

As recently as 2000 I worked for a small local walk-in copy/print shop, and my system was a Power Mac 7300/180; 32 MB RAM. My co-worker/supervisor complained to the owner about how many breaks I took, smokin' cigs and going next door for bagels and coffee, and what not.

He came blasting in the next morning—loaded for bear—with a 12" × 18" poster project for the local theatre company, and stood nearby watching as I opened it and started working on it. First operations: Copy files from ZIP disk to hard drive. Then, open a 40 MB 14"W × 11"H background image and rotate it just a wee bit more than 90°.

I hit the "Go" button to commit to the rotation and button-holed him to walk next door for a coffee, and then out to the sidewalk for a smoke while we talked.

I explained all my breaks, saying that the system was just too underpowered for me to get work done quickly on the type of projects he was bringing to me, and that there weren't really any "busy-work" duties to take care of. I explained to him why—for months!—I had been begging for a bunch more RAM, but he always balked at the cost. He was the owner, after all, and was always looking at the bottom line.

We got sidetracked, and about 30 minutes went by. We walked back in to the shop. Looking at my monitor, we saw the rotation still had about 10 minutes to go. I could almost make out an actual light bulb begin to appear in the æther over top of his head.

He ordered a GB of RAM that afternoon, after asking me to research the best place to get it.

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

When you're billing by the hour, there's little incentive to upgrade to faster machines.

[Phosąfour dots]

Oh, the stories I could tell you about that guy. Giga-Ego, arrogant beyond all reason, preening, strutting, womanizing, a ghoul who ran the business his father built up for 40-some years into the ground (the shop I worked in was just a small satellite shop, there was a much larger offset printing company), then sold the real-estate holdings as soon as he put his old man in the nursing home. Then he married some booze-hound coke bimbo half his age and moved to Florida.

[Ho]

Then he married some booze-hound coke bimbo half his age and moved to

Florida...

Ah, so that's what happened to my last college girlfriend. I always wondered. :)

I'm tempted to relate the tale of working on an 11x17, many-layered composite using Photoshop 4 and 32MB of RAM with a file size that hit ~1GB, but I'll spare you the agony of reading it and myself the pain for remembering the details. That it was possible at all is something of a miracle in itself.

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

so i saved the project but its 1GB which i dont mind but how do you save the project as a differint format?

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

oh and also how can i make all of the images around the same size so i dont have to do it manually and how would i be able to line them up quickly in a few rows?

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

To save the file in a different format, you go to the File menu and do a Save As. There's a drop down menu that will have all the available file formats. Not all file formats are available all the time. Some don't support layers, or alpha channels, or 16 bits per channel, etc.

The previous suggestion of setting up a grid, using the Guides feature, is a great suggestion. When you have Snap to Guides activated, it should be pretty easy to line everything up. While it may be possible to automate some sort of importation routine, 120 or so images shouldn't take you too long to do manually, and you'll have complete control over each image.

Clicking on the Move Tool (shortcut - press the letter V) and checking the Layer Auto Select option will help you automatically select layers by simply clicking in the image. I normally uncheck this feature, but for this type of project it can be very helpful.

Again, as previously mentioned, you can use the Free Transform Tool to size images to the grid you set up. Couple of hours - well, maybe a few, and you'll be done.

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

can somebody tell me how to set up the grid or are you talking about the canvas?

[J_Ma...@adobeforums.com]

Photoshop menu... preferences... guides, grids etc. Set grid to 2 inches, with 1 subdivision. If you then View menu... show grid and view... snap to... grid, you should be golden.

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

hi everybody well the poster is almost done but i didnt use photoshop i used picasa but now the quality sucks so do you know of any program to use to get the quality alot better?

[Don_Mc...@adobeforums.com]

Well, Photoshop, but as we have mentioned, there is a steep learning curve, and you might not be able to produce a work of art as your first project.

As for "the quality sucks" you might find the same thing happening in Photoshop. I know that I've turned out many things that suck and I've been using it for 15 years now. But I have also see more artistic people turn out works of art with it.

[mitchel...@adobeforums.com]

no when i use photoshop the wuality is really good