Kept Light Photography

Photography and Writing by A. Cemal Ekin

See the November 2014 addendum at the end if your version is missing this feature

Photoshop has many tricks, but automatically adjusting for the actual screen PPI (pixels per inch) to display accurate print dimensions is not one of them. You need to train the old dog for this new trick. It is quite straightforward, and from that point on, when you choose “View/Print Size,” it will display the actual size. Of course, large print sizes may not fit the screen, but you will get a good sense of proportion.

This discrepancy has two sources. The first one is Adobe settings for units that use 72 PPI for the screen resolution, although most screens today provide higher resolution than that; not by much, but higher nevertheless. The second source of the problem is that different monitors show different “actual” resolution than the nominal reported one. So, the crucial thing to do is to measure the pixels/inch for your specific monitor. Here is how.

  1. Create a blank document that has 300 dpi print resolution, 9″ x 9″ in dimensions. This will create a blank document 2700×2700 in pixel dimensions
  2. Fill it with white, if it is not already filled
  3. From the menu, choose “View/Print Size”
  4. With an accurate ruler and using great care not to damage your screen, measure the displayed dimensions in inches. In all likelihood, it will be a good deal smaller than 9 inches
  5. Divide 9 inches by the actual measurement you obtain from the screen, which will provide the correction factor. I am not using an example since this number may vary from one screen to another.
  6. Now, go to “Edit/Preferences/Units & Rulers,” and find the screen resolution. Most likely it is set to 72 pixels/inch
  7. Multiply the current PPI, 72, by the correction factor you calculated above and enter that in the screen resolution field. Click OK.

The resulting screen resolution may have a decimal fraction, that’s OK, and it will not necessarily be 96 PPI either. My screen’s actual resolution turns out to be 94.299. Your number will likely be different from this

From now on, when you choose “View/Print Size” your screen will display the actual dimensions of the print. I told you it was simple, but I wish Adobe could find a way to automate this.

Note March 16, 2013: Ole Nielsen reports that Photoshop 13.0.4 Creative Cloud-version does not support the “View/Print Size” option. I do not have the first-hand experience but am reporting what I learned.

Note November 2014: I have realized during a workshop I was running that Adobe pulled out this feature from Photoshop CS6 on the ground that it was difficult to implement and support retina displays. Interestingly, it found its way to Photoshop CC and living there happily thereafter! The solution they officially recommend (the help forum where they made this suggestion has disappeared, 12/21/2016), if your updated Photoshop CS6  has lost this capability, is to upgrade to CC. I will be cynical here and say “how surprisingly insightful!” There is another solution that involves downloading a script from their site. It simply calculates the necessary zoom ratio and tells the user. You can probably, with some patience, can do the same with trial and error and note the zoom percentage and use that in the future when you want to view the image in actual print size on the screen. You will see many participants in various forums, from Adobe heavyweights to welterweight fanboys, all arguing that Adobe had no choice but to remove it. I am glad at least the CC users got it and I have learned to live with alternate solutions. I wish all would be a little more frank, just a little!

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Kept Light Photography

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  1. I have tried your solution to no avail, although I know from other websites that this does work for some people. I’m using PhotoShop 7 under Windows XP as well as Windows 7. When I change the screen resolution and select View>Print Size, I get exactly the same result: A 7.1 inch ruler claiming to be 9 inches. Does anyone have a solution for this? Thanks!

    • Mike, I am not sure if Photoshop 7 has the same settings as I describe in the article. The idea is to tell Photoshop the screen resolution that it can use internally. If you see that setting among the configuration parameters and you enter the correct number, it should display the accurate print size. This of course presumes that you are using a document with 300 dpi resolution. If the document resolution is not 300 dpi you will get a different result.

  2. Clear simple notes. Worked in minutes. Flawless. Thank you so much.
    I’m on PS CS3 10.0.1 with iMac intel i5 OsX 10.6.8

  3. Great tip! This is one of the easiest ways to get an accurate print size display. You may need to quit and restart Photoshop to load the new preference & you can tweak it as many times as necessary to get it spot on. If you’re working for the web then use “View > Actual Pixels”

  4. Is there a way to do this in InDesign? I tried putting the new resolution value in, and it said my number had to be between 60 and 80. It was 129.6, so it was a no go. Any advice or tips? Thanks in advance!

    • Sorry but I am not as familiar with InDesign as I am with Photoshop. Where did you see the resolution information in InDesign? I use CS5 and did not see the setting for screen resolution setting with a quick glance. Your best bet may be to set a zoom percentage by measuring the on-screen object and entering a zoom factor that will give you the accurate dimension.

  5. Saved the day again! That’s two times I’ve gone back to this page to figure out how to do this. :-) Thank you for posting this.

  6. OMG you are the best, this was killing me for the longest time. You made it very simple to follow. Thanks again!!!!!!

  8. I just tried this and also did it another much longer way described elsewhere and this came up with the same result and is sooo much easier. I use Win XP and Photoshop 7.0

    Thanks much!!

  9. Brilliant, thank you, something so simple but caused quite a headache before i read this. THANK YOU!

  11. Many walk-throughs leave bits out or use unexplained jargon where I get stranded but this worked perfectly, thank you!

  14. This worked a treat until I installed the latest Adobe update to & now under view I only have 100% option rather than the usual ‘print size’ option. I tried your trick but this time the 100% view was about 10cm bigger when measured on my ruler, rather than being a smaller measurement. Any suggestions for me to try & sort things again? Thanks

      • On my Photoshop CS6 menu I have the Print Size option under “View” menu option. Maybe your update did not complete properly. Can you install the latest version of Photoshop of your version to see if that fixes the problem?

  16. In my particular case, when pressing ‘zoom in’ or ‘zoom out’ all the way to, say, 33.33% (this number is displayed in the lower-left hand corner of the document you’re working on), the image is displayed properly and at full 300dpi resolution. And it’s close to actual print size, but not exact.

    When pressing ‘zoom in’ or ‘zoom out’ once, these numbers go up or down to in their defaults, which ensures full 300dpi resolution display of your document. (i.e. – 12.5%, 16.67%, 25%, 33.33%, etc.) Manually changing these numbers to anything else other than the defaults blurs the display of your document.

    After following the original author’s instructions, and then selecting ‘view/print size’, the number drops to 31.67%, which is in between the defaults, and as a result my document is blurred. Now press ‘zoom in’ once, and the number goes up to the 33.33% default, and the image sharpens up again. But the problem is it’s no longer showing the document at ‘print size’. But it’s close… maybe good enough.

    Anyone else noticing this? After following the instructions, pay attention the the clarity of your document when viewing at ‘print size’. It’s a little blurry. Now press ‘zoom in’ once and you will see your image clarity increase (to normal 300dpi).

    • This procedure sets up the system so that when you select View/Print Size you will get an idea how the image will appear when printed. The Photoshop image quality being the best at factor of two reduction in size, 50%, 25%, etc. The later versions of Photoshop display the image at high quality at any zoom factor.

      • ok, excellent!

        So does this mean that you would need at least CS6 to have Photoshop display a perfect resolution at anyhting other than the defaults (25%, 33.33%, etc) ?

  17. I’m currently running CS5 and it is definitely blurring the display when viewed at, say, 31.67% (this number becomes the default for “view/print size” after executing your original instructions). Hope I’m making sense.

    • Yes, of course, you are correct. The purpose of my post is to make the View/Print Size option to display the reasonably correct print dimension on screen. I am not sure which version of PS started displaying high quality image, I thought it was CS5 and above. I may be wrong. It also depends on your video card, how much video RAM you have installed. You may want to check Adobe forums for the quality of display issues.

      • Thanks, Cemal. The view/print size instructions work perfectly. Only problem is the blurred display as a result. Not a big deal for most, but when working on an image at 31.67%, it’s difficult because you’re not seeing a perfectly rendered 300dpi version of it, you’re seeing a blurred version which makes it hard to determine what it will look like when printed (in terms of sharpness).

        The only workaround for this is to go to “Edit/Preferences/Units & Rulers” and change the screen resolution from 72 to 100. Then go to “view print size” and it will display your document as perfect quality (33.33%), but this displays it about .5 inches larger than actual print size. Which seems to be close enough.

        It’s something to definitely check up on with Adobe and find out why this happens.

        • You would not want to judge the sharpness at print size, best is to view the image at 100% and sharpen it so that is looks a little over done on screen. I use PixelGenius Sharpener which takes some of the guess work out. Nik Sharpener works well too. I have posts that deal with the sharpening workflow, you may want to take a peek at them. Check under “Workshops/Speaking”.

  18. Thanks for the great discussion here. It’s an issue I’ve been struggling with for a while now – how far should you zoom into your image before it’s overkill? It depends on resolution and the physical size of your document for starters.

    I’ve recently began zooming in to ‘print size’ and trying to not zoom in any further. It gives me the feeling of working on the actual canvas as if I was painting in my workshop with paints, pencils and an actual easel. I know that at the ‘print size’ level that my document being displayed is the exact same as if it were on paper. Zooming in any closer, I find, distorts my idea of how the document is going to look when printed out – if I zoom in any closer than ‘print size’ I begin to wonder, is there any point to being this meticulate, when it’s likley not going to show up on the print? Or will it? Then I have to keep zooming in/zooming out, and begin to lose sight of how my document is going to look when printed, because I’m always viewing it at different levels and this becomes very, very confusing.

    Another problem with working at ‘print size’ is that it can be difficult to paint in the small details in tight areas. Is this because we don’t have an actual pencil/brush in our hands, and that we’re not actually seeing a real brush tip on the screen? Sure, we see the “brush tip icon”, which usually shows as a small dot wherever your cursor is placed if you’re using a photoshop pencil or chalk brush, for example. But we don’t see an actual pencil or brush on the screen; only what’s physically in our hands (a wacom pen if you’re using an Intuos or a Cintiq). This is what I beleive causes a ‘disconnect’ between the user and the computer screen; it’s because it’s a simulation and not the ‘real thing’.

    So back to the point – when painting at ‘print size’, it can be difficult to get into the tight spots. So I’ll typically zoom in a level or two so I can hit those tight spots. But then my problem re-occurs again – is there any point to being this close? Will the printout show these details significantly? For example, if I draw a manual line stroke (with a Cintiq) at ‘print level’, will that line stroke look any different when printed out if I actually zoom in close and refine that line? Or is it a waste of time, seeing as that the image I’m working on is assumed to never be printed any larger than ‘print size’? If I zoom back out to ‘print level’ after refining that line, does it look noticiably different? The reason I ask is because if it is deemed to be a bit overkill, then working strictly at ‘print size’ could save massive amounts of time and effort – no need to constantly zoom in/zoom out, no need to pan around the image when zooming in close (assuming your document is not physically larger than what your monitor can display) ,etc.

    I’m trying to lock in my documents at ‘print level’ but find myself to be wasting lots of time and becoming over-meticulous by zooming in too close and worrying about small details that will likely not be seen or noticed on the printout. The problem is, when you zoom in close, the small details no longer look like small details because they’re being displayed much larger! So you lose sight of what a small detail is, then you zoom in/zoom out zoom in/zoom out trying to determine what this is going to look like when printed out in your hands on paper. Phew!

    Great topic. I hope some other users have some advice on this.

    • Roger, thank you for the long and informative post. I think the disconnect between the screen and the print is inherent in the “resolution” of the devices. Screens, no matter how good, are low resolution where print, even a low cost one is much higher res. Which necessitates adjusting for the “print size” on the screen. Again, stemming from this disparity, applying and evaluating necessary sharpening can become problematic. That’s why the general advice is that when applying print sharpening, the image on the screen should look a little over sharpened so when printed it will be just right. Of course, the concept is ambiguous since we don’t really know what “little over sharpened” is and it varies from image to image.

      Editing at full size makes spotting blemishes a little easier to see and fix. Some delicate dodging and burning may also benefit from larger than print size zoom. The real benefit of viewing print size is to have a “feel for the output” rather than for critical evaluation of detail. The detail quality and fussing over it is mostly an image type and personal preference matter. When editing a portrait we probably tend to be more careful to fix the blemishes than, say a finely detailed landscape which will likely hide most such blemishes even dust spots. The proof of the pudding is in the printing, if the print looks good and does not suffer from visible distractions the editing was done right.

  21. I followed your directions while working on a file for a 12″ album cover because I wanted a sense of scale for the lettering on the back and how it would look on the actual 12 inch space.

    9 screen inches = 5.5 real inches. So my correction factor was 1.636 resulting in a new dpi of 117.818.

    However, when I put the new number in preferences, nothing changed. What am I doing wrong?

    Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

    • If you saved your settings, now you can choose “View/Print size” and you will see a very close approximation of the printed page.

  22. The version is 13.0.4 and it is the Creative Cloud-version. This note is coming up in the helpsektion: print size does not exist I the Creative Cloud-version.

    • Thank you Ole Nielsen, I did not know that the cloud and land based versions of Photoshop differed. I will add this note to the body of the post. I appreciate getting back to me.

  23. I am a photoshop CS5 user and #6 should read:

    Now, go to “****Photoshop****/Preferences/Units & Rulers” and find the screen resolution. Most likely it is set at 72 pixels/inch

    Great tip tho!

    • I think your instructions are from a Mac, I plead ignorance. I am not familiar with the Macintosh platform. But your comment duly notes the change here. Thank you.

  25. This is great – many thanks!
    I’ve got it much more accurate at the very least now, and can gauge my hierarchy of information.

  26. Thanks so much for this! Have been struggling to find a solution to this problem for a long time.
    I’m on version 12.0- worked without re-starting.

    • Just be careful, your monitor’s actual diagonal measurement may be different from the nominal measurement reported in the product literature. A 24″ monitor may measure 23″ and change, where another 24″ monitor may measure exactly 24″. Both treated as 24″ monitors will yield the same ppi where the actual value may be different.

  29. Thank you so much, it was such a relief. Using CS5 on win 7.
    rulers:cm
    type:points
    width:180 points
    gutter:12 points
    print resolution: whatever
    screen resolution: as obtained, in my case 100.46 pixels/inch, earlier 72 pixels/inch