Sizing photos for indesign

[Ramblerkat]

Hello,

I have what you all may think is a really simple and silly question but I cannot find my answer in any of the tutorials.  I am designing a tutorial book in Indesign.  The photos I took are all of a large size.4272x2848 with a resolution of 72.  This is the way they come off my canon rebel.   I take them into photoshop and normally just do a auto contrast and then save them to a folder.  My question is, should I resize the photos to a smaller size prior to taking them into Indesign or just resize them in Indesign.  If I should resize them prior, what is a good size for a photo to show up in a book created with Indesign using say a letter sized page?  I really appreciate any help.  I am obviously self taught and just learning Indesign, which I am loving.  I watch Terry White's tutorials and he is great but I cannot find this solution so thank you very much.

Kathleen Nash

[Derek Cross]

I suggest you roughly resize them in Photoshop to the size you want them to print on the page with a resolution of around 300ppi.

Keep the images in RGB color mode and Place them as PSD files in InDesign so you can round trip to Photoshop to do more work on them if necessary. After placing check the Effective Resolution in InDesign to ensure you have a resolution between 250 and 300ppi.

[Ramblerkat]

Thank you Derek, that's my problem, I don't know what size I want them to print on the page.  lol I know that sounds crazy to you all who are pro's.  I think I will save them all at their original size and change the resolution to 300 and then downsize them to maybe around 1200?  I guess this is going to be trial and error.  Thanks.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

I guess this is going to be trial and error.  Thanks.

When you scale a placed image in InDesign you are resizing–not resampling the image pixels. Scaling in ID is the same as unchecking Resample in Photoshop's Image Size dialog. Because your camera is setting the resolution to 72ppi, the image's output (print) dimensions are 59.333" x 39.556". By default InDesign uses the output dimensions at 100% when you place.

In PS you can uncheck Resample in Image Size and set the output dimension to a more manageable size without losing resolution. If you do that you will have more flexibility when you scale in InDesign—there will be more effective resolution available in the page layout.

With Resample off, changing the width maintains the image pixel dimensions and the resolution increases accordingly.

[Ramblerkat]

Thank you very much for that explanation Rob.