Some could argue that Photoshop isn’t a printing program at all.
Rather, it’s designed to prepare images that you plan to import into
programs that are designed to amass and print pages, such as Adobe
InDesign and Quark XPress. For example, I prepared the images
in this book in Photoshop; but I laid out this and every other page
in InDesign.
Printing from Photoshop is at once a primitive and a sophisticated
experience. On the primitive side, there’s no way to print multi page
documents. Even if you open multiple files, you can’t print them
all in one fell swoop; you must print each image in turn. You can’t
even print independent layers; the program always prints all visible
layers. And you can print just one copy of a file per page. So if you
want to double up images, you have to repeat the image inside the
file before choosing Print.
So what’s the sophisticated part? Well, what Photoshop lacks in
page control, it makes up for in real-world acumen. First, it realizes
that you have different output destinations. Sometimes you want
to print a full-color page to a printer in your home or office. Other
times, you want to print several hundred copies of your artwork for
mass distribution. Second, Photoshop understands that regardless of
your destination, you want the colors that you see on your screen to
translate accurately onto the printed page. Most programs don’t give
either of these very important aspects of printing much attention.
Yet for Photoshop, these are the only printing issues that matter.
And as you’ll discover in this lesson, Photoshop happens to be right.
PeaRl Of WISDOmThe terms local printing and commercial reproduction output both refer to
the act of getting something you see on screen onto a piece of paper; it’s just
a matter of scale and important-sounding words. The irony is that printing
from a modern inkjet printer can produce better results than professional
commercial output. In fact, an inkjet print can look every bit as good as a
photographic print from a conventional photo lab. But inkjets are simply not
affordable for large-scale reproduction. For example, printing a single copy
of a 100-page glossy magazine would cost $50 to $100 in ink and paper.
Commercially outputting that same magazine requires you to lay down
more cash up front, but the per-issue costs are pennies per page. So when
you want to make just a few copies, local printing offers the advantages of
convenience and quality. But if you’re planning a big print run, commercial
output is the way to go.
Print and Web Output 421