Computer Graphics with Photoshop - Unexpected behaviour of cut-and-paste with transparent images

Author

Unexpected behaviour of cut-and-paste with transparent images

James McNangle

2007-03-09, 3:16 am

A while ago I devised procedure for printing business cards. I set up an A4
master sheet, with guidelines dividing it into 10 business cards, and trim
marks. Then I made up a template for each individual business card. I saved
each as .psd files so that I can edit them them later if required. To make a
working copy for a given card, I open the template, flatten it, then cut and
paste it into the compartments on the A4 master sheet. I flatten this, save it
as as a.jpg, and print it again when I needed more cards.

Originally I had been using a deckle finish grey card, but when this ran out I
found it was no longer available. I still had some matching grey paper, so I
scanned this, and pasted it onto the A4 master. I took the template for one of
the cards, and deleted the background layer, so that it became transparent.
Then I cut and pasted it onto the master as before. When I printed this on
white card with my colour printer it gave nice effect, but after I had printed a
couple of sheets I noticed that the cards were misplaced in relation to the trim
lines.

Apparently when you cut and paste a transparent image the size is determined by
the black components in the image, rather than its original size, and these are
centred in the working area. To overcome the problem I put very small marks in
the corners, so that the cut operation picks up the whole image and places it
correctly. These marks can also serve for trim marks.

James McNangle

KatWoman

2007-03-09, 6:14 pm

"James McNangle" <mcnangle@westnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:dro1v21780gltdoiu1i2maiu6rkdt2olch@4ax.com...
>A while ago I devised procedure for printing business cards. I set up an
>A4
> master sheet, with guidelines dividing it into 10 business cards, and trim
> marks. Then I made up a template for each individual business card. I
> saved
> each as .psd files so that I can edit them them later if required. To
> make a
> working copy for a given card, I open the template, flatten it, then cut
> and
> paste it into the compartments on the A4 master sheet. I flatten this,
> save it
> as as a.jpg, and print it again when I needed more cards.
>
> Originally I had been using a deckle finish grey card, but when this ran
> out I
> found it was no longer available. I still had some matching grey paper,
> so I
> scanned this, and pasted it onto the A4 master. I took the template for
> one of
> the cards, and deleted the background layer, so that it became
> transparent.
> Then I cut and pasted it onto the master as before. When I printed this
> on
> white card with my colour printer it gave nice effect, but after I had
> printed a
> couple of sheets I noticed that the cards were misplaced in relation to
> the trim
> lines.
>
> Apparently when you cut and paste a transparent image the size is
> determined by
> the black components in the image, rather than its original size, and
> these are
> centred in the working area. To overcome the problem I put very small
> marks in
> the corners, so that the cut operation picks up the whole image and places
> it
> correctly. These marks can also serve for trim marks.
>
> James McNangle

whew

PS is not the best layout program
I make the design, save as psd in case of future edits
save as tiff or hi res jpg
open MS Publisher, import image onto the
business card template
it places the multiples and prints the page within register of the die cut
paper

Avery has this for free too
it comes with the card stock

not sure about the transparency taking away the "edges" of the image?
are both the same resolution?

tacit

2007-03-09, 6:14 pm

In article <dro1v21780gltdoiu1i2maiu6rkdt2olch@4ax.com>,
James McNangle <mcnangle@westnet.com.au> wrote:

> A while ago I devised procedure for printing business cards. I set up an A4
> master sheet, with guidelines dividing it into 10 business cards, and trim
> marks. Then I made up a template for each individual business card. I saved
> each as .psd files so that I can edit them them later if required. To make a
> working copy for a given card, I open the template, flatten it, then cut and
> paste it into the compartments on the A4 master sheet. I flatten this, save
> it as as a.jpg, and print it again when I needed more cards.

Ouch. I'm sorry. You're going through a lot of convolutions to produce
inferior results, because you're using the wrong tool for the job.
Photoshop isn't a page-layout program; by flattening the image you are
rasterizing your text; and by saving as JPEG you are degrading the
quality of the image.

> Originally I had been using a deckle finish grey card, but when this ran out
> I found it was no longer available. I still had some matching grey paper, so I
> scanned this, and pasted it onto the A4 master. I took the template for one
> of
> the cards, and deleted the background layer, so that it became transparent.
> Then I cut and pasted it onto the master as before. When I printed this on
> white card with my colour printer it gave nice effect, but after I had
> printed a
> couple of sheets I noticed that the cards were misplaced in relation to the
> trim
> lines.
>
> Apparently when you cut and paste a transparent image the size is determined
> by
> the black components in the image, rather than its original size, and these
> are
> centred in the working area.

Correct, yes. Copying something with a transparent background copies
only the bounding box of the image, not the entire selected area.

> To overcome the problem I put very small marks
> in the corners, so that the cut operation picks up the whole image and places it
> correctly. These marks can also serve for trim marks.

A better way might be to use a page layout program to do the cards.

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

On Mar 9, 4:44 pm, tacit <tac...@aol.com> wrote:
> In article <dro1v21780gltdoiu1i2maiu6rkdt2o...@4ax.com>,
> James McNangle <mcnan...@westnet.com.au> wrote:
>
>
> Ouch. I'm sorry. You're going through a lot of convolutions to produce
> inferior results, because you're using the wrong tool for the job.
> Photoshop isn't a page-layout program; by flattening the image you are
> rasterizing your text; and by saving as JPEG you are degrading the
> quality of the image.
>
>
>
>
>
> Correct, yes. Copying something with a transparent background copies
> only the bounding box of the image, not the entire selected area.
>
>
> A better way might be to use a page layout program to do the cards.
>
> --
> Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all athttp://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Is Illustrator a page layout program? If the cards had been created
using AI should that be used to print them or should they be
transferred to something like MS Pub?

Thanks,
Ron

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

On Mar 9, 3:14 pm, "KatWoman" <XXXJoliePrincessKatana...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> "James McNangle" <mcnan...@westnet.com.au> wrote in message
>
> news:dro1v21780gltdoiu1i2maiu6rkdt2olch@4ax.com...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> whew
>
> PS is not the best layout program
> I make the design, save as psd in case of future edits
> save as tiff or hi res jpg
> open MS Publisher, import image onto the
> business card template
> it places the multiples and prints the page within register of the die cut
> paper
>
> Avery has this for free too
> it comes with the card stock
>
> not sure about the transparency taking away the "edges" of the image?
> are both the same resolution?

I am guessing you have both MS Pub and In Design (which I think is
Adobe's competing product) why do you choose MS Pub?
Thanks,
Ron

tacit

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

In article <1173483102.315146.196920@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
"ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX" <ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote:

> Is Illustrator a page layout program? If the cards had been created
> using AI should that be used to print them or should they be
> transferred to something like MS Pub?

Illustrator is a drawing program, not a page layout program. However,
for simple jobs like business cards, it works well; no need to go to a
page layout program. For anything more sophisticated, you wouldn't want
to use Illustrator; creating a full-page magazine ad, for example, is an
exercise in tedium in Illustrator (though it's still better than using
Photoshop for that kind of task).

--
Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all at
http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

ronviers@gmail.com

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

On Mar 9, 6:19 pm, tacit <tac...@aol.com> wrote:
> In article <1173483102.315146.196...@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
>
> "ronvi...@XXXXXXXXXX" <ronvi...@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote:
>
> Illustrator is a drawing program, not a page layout program. However,
> for simple jobs like business cards, it works well; no need to go to a
> page layout program. For anything more sophisticated, you wouldn't want
> to use Illustrator; creating a full-page magazine ad, for example, is an
> exercise in tedium in Illustrator (though it's still better than using
> Photoshop for that kind of task).
>
> --
> Photography, kink, polyamory, shareware, and more: all athttp://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

Got it, thanks.

James McNangle

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

"KatWoman" <XXXJoliePrincessKatanaXXX@hotmail.com> wrote:

>PS is not the best layout program

It's a hell of a lot better than MS Word, which I previously tried to use! I
only print a batch of cards about every six months, so I haven't thought it
worth the hassle of getting and learning another program.

>Avery has this for free too
>it comes with the card stock
>
>not sure about the transparency taking away the "edges" of the image?
>are both the same resolution?

Yes.

James McNangle

James McNangle

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

tacit <tacitr@aol.com> wrote:

>Photoshop isn't a page-layout program; by flattening the image you are
>rasterizing your text; and by saving as JPEG you are degrading the
>quality of the image.

I hadn't thought of that. I only converted to JPEG to save file space -- the
master A4 sheet is 44MB -- but I haven't noticed any degradation. I must try
printing from .psd and .jpeg to see if there is any difference. And with hard
disk space at $0.40 per gigabyte (and probably half that for you) I shouldn't
really be worrying, but I have been conditioned by my first computer, where it
cost $0.40 per kilobyte!

James McNangle

KatWoman

2007-03-09, 10:14 pm

<ronviers@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote in message
news:1173483318.912200.281360@n33g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> On Mar 9, 3:14 pm, "KatWoman" <XXXJoliePrincessKatana...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> I am guessing you have both MS Pub and In Design (which I think is
> Adobe's competing product) why do you choose MS Pub?
> Thanks,
> Ron

Do Not have In Design
Just PS and Illy

James McNangle

2007-03-10, 10:14 pm

tacit <tacitr@aol.com> wrote:

>Ouch. I'm sorry. .........
> by flattening the image you are
>rasterizing your text; and by saving as JPEG you are degrading the
>quality of the image.

The master template for the card has about seven layers, and it seems to be
impossible to cut and paste it onto the A4 master without first flattening it. A
quick test indicated that this did not cause any loss of quality.

I was intrigued as to how much degradation the conversion to JPEG caused, so I
made three test prints. In the first I flattened the original .psd file and
then pasted it onto an A6 master. For the others I flattened the original file
and then saved it as a JPEG file using quality settings of eight and then 10. I
then reloaded these files and pasted on onto an A6 master, and printed them. To
my (suboptimal) eyes there was no visible difference between the three prints.
However when I examined with an eight power magnifier the lowest quality image
was liberally scattered with microscopic black fly spots, the higher quality one
had a few spots, while the .psd file had none. On the other hand the
degradation of the text itself was not noticeably different in any of the
prints.

You can see a demonstration of the results of these tests at:

http://www.corybas.com/Technical/Test_jpg.php

James McNangle

James McNangle

2007-03-11, 4:14 am

James McNangle <mcnangle@westnet.com.au> wrote:

>You can see a demonstration of the results of these tests at:
>
>http://www.corybas.com/Technical/Test_jpg.php

After posting the above message, I was still puzzled that even the print from a
..psd file seemed rather fuzzy (when examined with the magnifier). It then
occurred to me that I had specified the resolution of my master files as 10
pixels per millimetre to simplify the mathematics. However the native
resolution of the printer was 600 dots per inch, and I wondered if this mismatch
could have caused the fuzziness. A quick test revealed that this was indeed the
case. Damn!

I have repeated the test using resolutions of 600 and 300 pixels per inch, and
posted the new results at the above reference. The tests show that is certainly
advisable to use a resolution that matches the native resolution of the printer,
and that the outline of the letters is microscopically cleaner at 600 pixels per
inch, but all the samples are indistinguishable to my eye, and perfectly
adequate for normal use.

James McNangle