Resizing vs Resampling

Hi Guys, here is a quick heads-up on Re-sizing (for print) vs Re-sampling in Photoshop.

When changing the size of an image in Photoshop, there’s really two ways to go about it. You can either resize the image, or you can resample it.

A lot of people use the terms resizing and resampling as if they mean the same thing, but they don’t, and there’s an important difference between the two.

• Image RESIZING – keeps the number of pixels in your image the same and affects only how large your image will print (the Document Size).
• Image RESAMPLING – physically changes the number of pixels in your image (the Pixel Dimensions). Photoshop uses “interpolation algorithms”. That’s a fancy phrase for what essentially means how Photoshop handles adding pixels when you resample the image to a larger size.

It’s up to you which you use, but my advice is use RESIZING. Which means Photoshop isn’t creating new information that your camera or scanner didn’t capture.

As you can see in the screen grab, click the check box “resample image” to off. Then change your document size to 14″ x 9.3″ You will see that the final ppi has changed (lowered). This shouldn’t effect your final print quality. I would suggest the lowest would be about 240ppi (at final print size).

If you really what to RESAMPLE your image (to get 300ppi) thats fine too, just know the difference.