Accurate screen-to-print sizing in Photoshop
Preview millimeter-accurate images on screen without having to continually print test prints.
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
I learnt how to set up Photoshop today so that the screen displays images at the exact same size they will print out, which is great for previewing how your work will look without endless printing and reprinting.
Here’s what you do:
- Note the size of your screen height in pixels (mine is 1024)
- Measure the physical height of the pixel-area of your screen using a ruler (mine measured 27.0 cm exactly)
- Divide the number of pixels by the number of centimetres (1024 / 27 = 37.925)
- Enter this number in the Screen Resolution box under Preferences > Units & Rulers:
Photoshop will now display your images at the correct size when you choose View > Print Size.
However, it’s a bit of pain to have to go to the menu option each time, but an easy solution is to simply map View > Print Size to the CTRL + ` (top left key):
Now, you can easily swap between 100% and Print Size by alternating between CTRL+1 and CTRL+`