Print Your Project
You’ve made your first project, and now it’s time to print it! We’ll talk about the photo paper you’ll need and printing process. The object is to end up with a postcard you can actually mail to someone.
Note: There are separate videos in this lesson for Windows and Macintosh.
Video 02-10: Print Your Project—Windows (4:26)
You've made your first project and now it's time to print it. The first thing to consider is the paper. You'll need good quality photo paper for your image to look good, but you also need the backside to be suitable for writing. A high quality double sided matte photo paper works great for this. Staples has a brand called Photo Supreme Double Sided Matte that I use when I make cards or postcards.
Once you have your photo paper ready to go in your printer, you can start the printing process. I'm working with a flat file, but this process works the same with the layered file. The printer just ignores the individual layers and prints what you see in the composite image. In the menu bar, choose File, Print, or use the shortcut Ctrl P, "P" for print.
A dialog box comes up with a preview of what the image will look like on a piece of paper. The image will be centered on the page by default. Follow the steps on the right.
Number one is to select a printer. This is important if you have more than one printer.
Number two is to check your printer settings. Click on Change Settings and the settings for your printer will come up. You may need to expand the dialog box to see all the features. To do that, I'll click on Advanced Settings and then click on Advanced Settings again. This allows me to choose the print quality I want, which for a postcard needs to be high quality. Again, if you're using a different printer your settings won't look like mine, but you'll have similar features. When you're satisfied with the settings click OK, then OK again, then OK again.
The print settings show plain paper but that isn't correct. You should choose photo quality. Someone else filmed this since I don't have windows so I wasn't the one who chose this quality. But I do want you to use double sided, high quality or photo paper and to choose photo quality for the paper type.
For the brand of paper I recommended earlier choose matte instead of glossy.
Number three is to select your paper size, and there are quite a few sizes listed in the menu. I'll choose US Letter. Also you can choose the orientation. For this image, it makes more sense to choose the vertical orientation.
Number four is select type of print. Selecting Individual Prints will place one photo on one piece of paper. Selecting Picture Package will allow you to print more than one photo on a single page. I'll show you how to do that in the next video. For now, I'll choose Individual Prints.
Number five is to select the print size. My postcard is 4 x 6 inches. And since that's a standard size, it's listed in the menu. If you have a non-standard size to print, be sure to open the menu and choose Actual Size as long as it fits the size of paper you're using. Again, for this image, I'll choose 4 x 6. Another option is to choose Crop to Fit if it doesn't fit. I'll deselect that. You can also select the number of copies you want to print. If you select two copies, though, it won't place both photos on one sheet of paper, it will simply print the photo twice using two sheets of paper. So I'll choose 1 for the number of print copies.
One thing you can do is change the position of a photo on the page. Notice there's a blue line around the photo. If you click and drag on the blue line, you can change the position of the photo on the page. This de-selects the Center Image checkbox. Don't click and drag on the image itself though, or it will hide part of the image. If you do this accidentally, check Center Image and try again, making sure you get a cross icon rather than a hand icon. So let's do that again. I'll click and drag to the top to save paper.
When all is ready, click the Print button and your photo will print. After printing your postcard let the ink dry and then cut it out and it's ready to use as a postcard. If you're interested in an easy way to print multiple photos on a single page, check out the next tutorial on Picture Package.
Video 02-10: Print Your Project—Mac (4:18)
You've made your first project and now it's time to print it. The first thing to consider is the paper. You need good quality photo paper for your image to look good, but you also need the backside to be suitable for writing. A high quality double sided matte photo paper works great for this. Staples has a brand called Photo Supreme Double Sided Matte that I use when I make cards or postcards.
Once you have your photo paper ready to go in your printer, you can start the printing process. Even though I have a layered PSD file, I do not have to flatten it before I print it. The printer just ignores the individual layers and prints what you see in the composite image.
In the menu bar, choose File, Print or use the shortcut Ctrl P in Windows Command P on a Mac: P for Print. A dialog box comes up with a preview of what the image will look like on a piece of paper. The image will be centered on the page by default. Follow the steps on the right.
Number one is to select a printer. This is important if you have more than one printer. Number two is to select your paper size and there are quite a few sizes listed in the menu. I'll choose US Letter. Also you can choose the orientation. For this image, it makes more sense to choose the vertical orientation. Number three is to select the print size. My postcard is four by six inches. And since that's a standard size, it's listed in the menu. But if you have a non-standard size to print, be sure to open the menu and choose actual size as long as it fits on the size of paper you're using. But again, for this image, I'll choose four by six.
Another option is to choose Crop To Fit if it doesn't fit, but I'll de-select that. You can also select the number of copies you want to print. If I select two copies, though, it won't place both photos on one sheet of paper, it will simply print the photo twice using two sheets of paper. So I'll choose one for the number of print copies. In the Windows version of Photoshop Elements. If you print from the Organizer, the organizing software that comes with Photoshop Elements, you can place multiple photos on a single printing page within the print dialog box. But this function hasn't been added yet to the Mac. In this print dialog box, I can add photos to print, but I can't put them on one page like you can in the Windows version of the Organizer print dialog box.
What you can do though, is change the position of a photo on the page. Notice there's a blue line around the photo. If you click and drag on the blue line, you can move the position of the photo on the page. This de-selects the Center Image checkbox. Don't click and drag on the image itself though, or it will hide part of the image. If you do this accidentally check Center Image and try again, making sure you get a cross icon rather than a hand icon.
So let's do that again. I'll click and drag that to the top to save paper. When all is ready, click the Print button and the settings for your printer will come up. This dialog box will be different for your printer. If you use a different printer, you may need to expand the dialog box to see all the features. To do that, I'll click on Show Details. This allows me to choose print settings and make sure that I'm using the quality of setting I want, which for a postcard needs to be photo quality. Again, if you're using a different printer, your settings won't look like mine, but you'll have similar features. When you're satisfied with the settings click Print.
After printing your postcard let the ink dry and then cut it out and it's ready to use as a postcard. If you're interested in a fun and easy way to print multiple photos on a single page, check out the next tutorial on using Picture Package.