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ooking for tips or guidance for creating a poster

Contributor ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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I am looking to create a 24x36 poster in PS for my daughter in which I want to paint around 5 Les Paul guitars (all different colors) with guitar tabs for songs as the background. My question is how do I make sure I set the guitars at a proper image size that will scale to the poster size of 24x36?

I'm creating each Les Paul guitar as it's own layer and then placing the layers in the poster. Once I have them all set I'll them merge the layers for printing. I just want to make sure the guitars are at the proper image size within the poster (not too big and more importantly, not too small).

I would appreciate any feedback.

Thx,

Jeff

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jan 03, 2017 Jan 03, 2017

JeffreyW wrote:

Quick question - when I have the final design, should I merge all layers and flatten?

Thx again

Definitely not.  Leave all layers intact, and export to PDF using the High Quality Print preset.  I am not going to say much about colour as it is not my area of expertise.  I give my artwork to a friend printer as sRGB, and he converts to CMYK and does a test print for me.

Some points:

The white backgrounds are incredibly easy to remove just using the Magic wand, which is all I used for my

...

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Community Expert ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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The poster is your composition. There is no right or wrong size.  I don't even know what guitar tabs for songs are. Just remember a 2' x 3' posters does not need to have a have a 300DPI print resolution. If you plan on having many layers creating the documemt with a 150 to 200dpi resolution will reduce the number of Pixels Photoshop will have to deal with. Photoshop will perform better dealing with fewer pixels. The canvas size 2' x 3' at 300DPI is 77.7MP a 2" x 3" 150DPI canvas size is 19.4MP  the is 1/4 the size as the 300DPI canvas.

JJMack

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Mentor ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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Hi

JJ, I think the Op is talking about a  24 inch x 36 inch poster.

Pierre

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Community Expert ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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When I divide 24" and 36"  by 12'" I get 2' by 3' don't you?

JJMack

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Mentor ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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Hi

Right, but some time it can be confusing.

I dont think the Op what to create a postal Stamp, I still think the Op want to create a "poster"  ( 24" X 36").

Or (2 feet X 3 feet).

Anyway, without knowing/seeing the Op images, hard to say if all images will fit the master PS file.

Pierre

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Community Expert ,
Jan 01, 2017 Jan 01, 2017

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Yes I can not type and I hit the Shift key when I shoul not have and  type " instead or '................ and some printers could print 19.4 MP in 2"x3" paper ny mot 77.7MP

JJMack

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Hi Jeffrey

You will be viewing a 24x36 inch poster from around 3 feet al least. At that distance good eyes can resolve about 200dpi * Anything more you won't see.

So in practice :

If the guitars are photographic images, then the image will already be at a resolution. Drop them into your poster as smart objects without sharpening and scale them to the size you need. Sharpen the final image before printing.

If you are drawing/painting the guitars - either work in illustrator which will do this as scalable vectors (i.e. they will look smooth at any size) or if you are working with pixels in Photoshop, paint them at your poster size and use 200dpi. That way you should be fine.

* see this link on image resolution

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/what-print-resolution-works-for-what-viewing-distance/

Dave

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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I am also not sure what a guitar tab is, but Google tells me that it might be an illustration of strings and frets with finger positions.  As others have said, this is your design, so I don't know what you are asking. Will you create the guitars with Photoshop, or use photographs?  How big will each guitar appear on the poster?

Because it is impossible not to throw at least some sort of idea at you, I thought of the entire background with the LP wood grain and dark gradient outside.  If this is indeed what a tab looks like, I have inlaid a large tab into the background. We can answer specific questions btw.

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Contributor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Trevor,

Thx for the reply.

I plan on using the guitar tab (inserted below) as the background.

Crazy Train.jpeg

Then I am going to paint 5 Les Paul guitars (like below - changing the color each time) and stack them one above the other with some space between each guitar (I plan on using guides to help space them). As you asked, how big should each guitar appear on the poster? I assume after I'm done painting each guitar I can free transform each guitar to the same appropriate size on the poster? I'm assuming it's WYSIWYG as what I see on screen (image size wise) is what will be printed out for the final image. Just want to make sure the image size for the guitars are correct before printing the poster.

Blueberry Burst Les Paul.jpeg

Thx

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Do you have illustrator? If you do, you can place your guitar images in Ai and use image trace (on high fidelity photos) to create vectors of the guitars, paint / color them as you wish and paste them back into Ps as smart objects. Scaling the guitars as vector images will maintain the quality if you choose to increase the size. The high fidelity trace will not be exactly the same as the photographic image but since you plan on painting them anyway you may like this style for your poster.

If you don't have illustrator then you should work with the guitar images at 100% or in other words at the same size you want them to be when printed so that you aren't enlarging them. This image is 27" wide now at 72 dpi... do you have a higher resolution file or are you pulling these down from the web? Generally speaking you can reduce image size without losing quality but not the other way around. Again this image looks good at 27" and if the width of your poster is 24" it should hold up.

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Contributor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Thx for the reply and info

Unfortunately I do not have Illustrator (planning on purchasing in the near future though). Greatly appreciate the tip on use image trace to create vectors of the guitars, paint them, then paste them back into PS as smart objects. Once I get Illustrator that's the way I'll go.

I'm pulling these down from the web. Is there a chart or a doc to refer to that shows what the number of pixels needs to be for a specific image size? Would love to refer to a doc so when I either search or create an image for a certain canvas size or aspect ratio, the number of pixels needed is listed.

Trying to learn as much as I can about canvas size, image size, and aspect ratios.

Thx again

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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JeffreyW wrote:

I plan on using the guitar tab (inserted below) as the background.

Crazy Train.jpeg

Then I am going to paint 5 Les Paul guitars (like below - changing the color each time) 

Blueberry Burst Les Paul.jpeg

Thx

The background you currently have does not have the amount of pixels you need for a 3 foot by 2 foot poster and it also does not have a 3:2 aspect ratio.  You need more pixels  if you want that music to cover the major portion of your 3'x2' 150 to 200DPI canvas.

Your guitar images will not be filling a major part of your poster's canvas. So the number of pixels you have for your guitars images is fine.  However,  the image is a bit soft IMO and could use some sharpening.  It also has a white background which should be removed. The image should then be saved as a png with a transparent background.   That png file can be placed placed into of poster  sized and positioned via the Place transform.   Once you have  the 5 placed guitars positioned and sized the way you want you can add adjustment layers clipped to a guitar layer to color the guitar the way you want.

The sharpen Guitar png may look something like this.

Blueberry+Burst+Les+Paul.png

JJMack

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Contributor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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JJMack,

Thx for the reply and information.

Is there a rule of thumb or perhaps a chart that shows how many pixels an image needs depending on the aspect ratio or canvas size? For example, using the guitar tab as a background, what would be the number of pixels needed for a 3:2 aspect ratio (3 foot x 2 foot poster)? A chart would be great as in the future I could then search for specific image sizes based on the aspect ratio or canvas size.

Thx for the tip about sharpening the guitar image and saving it as a .png with a transparent background and then placing them as with your suggestion I might make two iterations of the poster: One with the actual guitar images and one with the painting of the guitars I plan to do (my artistic interpretation of the guitars).

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Its simple math.  A canvas 36" x 24"  and resolution 150dpi 200dpi 300dpi do the math at 150DPI you need to have high quality pixels 5,400px by 3,600.  You only have  651px by 564px in your Crazy Train image.

JJMack

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Contributor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Thx

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Using Google Image search with its 'Larger than' filter set to 20Mp still gets a lot of hits, and is the biggest size filter that gets any meaningful results.  Or are you photographing the guitar(s)?

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Contributor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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I'm pulling the images from the web. i wish I had all those Les Paul guitars to photograph!

I'm starting to get the hang (appreciate) of image sizes as related to canvas size as I place the 2000 px x 666 px guitar images into the 18x24 canvas in PS.

I'm not finding larger images of the guitar with a white/black background in which I could cut out the guitar and then place into the canvas. I may have to go with more guitars on the canvas at lower image sizes to fill up the canvas. However, when I paint the guitars I should be good as I can create those painting at a much larger image size that will scale well in the 18 x 24 canvas.

Thx again

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Mentor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Hi

If you are serious about this project, best to contact "Gibson USA", and ask them for their photographic archives.

Explain to them "carefully" about your project.

Pierre

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Contributor ,
Jan 03, 2017 Jan 03, 2017

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postrophe,

Great idea - I will contact Gibson USA and inquire about their photographic archives as I "carefully" explain my project.to them

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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JeffreyW wrote:

I'm not finding larger images of the guitar with a white/black background in which I could cut out the guitar and then place into the canvas. I may have to go with more guitars on the canvas at lower image sizes to fill up the canvas. However, when I paint the guitars I should be good as I can create those painting at a much larger image size that will scale well in the 18 x 24 canvas.

Thx again

Crikey.  Just how big do you want this file to be?  And how are you going to arrange the guitars on the poster? There is a huge selection of suitable instruments at the 20Mp size I suggested earlier.   I arranged and sized them so that the necks were the same length (which was a guess) and the resulting file is 10.5 x 7k pixels, which at 36 x 24 inches is barely short of the ideal 300ppi.  You are home and dry Jeffrey.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Looking at your post #8 again, the tablature is still a stumbling block.  By going up size filters one step at a time, the largest relevant file I could find was this one that still falls well short.  If it was me, I couldn't possibly even think about proceeding with this project without creating vector version of the tablature.  The staves are easy to create, and there are lots of musical notation fonts out there, but the image you posted in #8 is so tiny I can't even see it well enough to remake it as a vector.

How crucial is this particular sheet music, and do you have it as hard copy you could photograph, or even scan (at 600dpi)?  If you find the thought of vectorising the music daunting, I suspect that if you supplied a better original, it might magically get done for you.  I notice you actually say Guitar 'tabs' plural, so if you were OK with using a bunch of them artfully arranged in the background, the size is not nearly so important.

http://musictheoryforguitar101.com/index_files/PDF/SamplePage_SheetMusic2016.jpg

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Contributor ,
Jan 03, 2017 Jan 03, 2017

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I think I may have found a way around scaling the current guitar images I have as when I opened one up last night and set the dimensions to percent and then selected 200% for w x h, the image actually scaled up rather well without losing much sharpness and was a reasonably sized image within the 18 x 24 poster

I am going to do some more experimenting tonight, especially with the tablatures as I was thinking I could use multiple tablatures as the background. Another idea I was thinking for the background was using a silhouette of a guitar player (Pete Townshend doing his famous windmill or something along those lines)

Another idea I was thinking for the background was using a silhouette of a guitar player (Pete Townshend doing his famous windmill or something along those lines) if the tablatures prove too tricky as a background.

Hopefully, I'll upload a mock poster design later tonight for review. Can't thank you guys enough for your feedback and help.

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Contributor ,
Jan 03, 2017 Jan 03, 2017

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Your layout looks pretty good!

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Mentor ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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Hi

Have you created a 'muck up" of your poster (whatever the resolution/size) ? If so, can you upload it here ?

Pierre

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Community Expert ,
Jan 02, 2017 Jan 02, 2017

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postrophe wrote:

Hi

Have you created a 'muck up" of your poster (whatever the resolution/size) ? If so, can you upload it here ?

Pierre

Now that is an excellent suggestion, and might save us wasting time with false assumptions. 

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