Lee

This is strange. I have been playing around with the settings in Paint.Net. I was afraid if I reduced the pixels, it would effect the quality of my print out. My problem has been, the photos won't fit in my first layer. First layer's settings: Page: Letter size DPI: 150. Photos will print out & fit in first layer at: 7" x 10" filling up my first layer. I don't dare resizing with mouse as I believe the photo will pixelize or not print well. I was taught to crop photos. Photos are showing to be in size: 15" x 9". Dpi: 180. One set of photos were too pretty to crop so I took photos & imported them into a bigger layer than the photo size showed & set layer at 20"x18". Saved file. Took a snapshot at full screen & pasted to same layer. This did give me the effect I wanted, a smaller frame size than what I started with, without effecting those pixels. This was a real pain to do tho. As there must be easier way, I tried resizing thru Paint.Net. Reduced the pixels by 70%. I take it those filters are helpping me (bicubic etc)? It worked. I got a much more manageable photo to import into my first layer without effecting the quality of print. David I believe you said it depends on your printer. I doubt if I took what I am creating to WalMart's photo dept, they could print as good as what I am experiencing right now with my printer. At least I am guessing about this. So am I wrong to change the pixel size? Without changing pixel size of file, the file is unmanageable in my first layer (letter size, dpi 150). Taking snapshots of the screen is a real pain to do.

Girls if you are interested I posted in the Tutorial forum how to do this. I ran several test in last week on best how to do this. viewtopic.php?f=15&t=23605 Post subject: Photos - cropping without stretching or shrinking photo Photos must be "cropped" has been my experience. The dpi's for both layer & imported photo must be the same. If photo's dpi is higher in value than your first layer you created, your photo will look too big for your first layer you created. So best to have the same dpi's in both files. Changing dpi of photo from 300 down to 100 dpi, will distort the photo. Best to make your first layer's dpi, same as dpi of photo. I hope this has helpped both of you...

David, I am surprised you do not know that if you change the dpi to a higher dpi while keeping the same frame size (letter size) that you do not know, the file saved on hard drive will be much larger. I did some test with Paint.Net & some other pgms & Paint.Net was the only one that did not increase file size on hard drive. Unfortunately Paint.Net failed with this test. I tried several times to take a snapshot of screen, paste into a layer with the dpi I wanted. Paint.Net blew up the image I was pasting into that later (without expanding canvas size). I was trying to take a 100 dpi (letter size) & make a new file with settings of 300 dpi (letter size). I was able to do this thru another pgm....FastStone, Irfan which are both viewers...not graphic editors. When I changed dpi settings in file, the pixels increased, save file & file size was bigger. I have posted in the Tutorial forum the correct way to crop a photo. I will probably post in that forum how to change dpi's while creating a new file with a higher dpi. My print out of the new created 300 dpi file printed out fine. See file attachment as of my results.

The Acrobat thing did not work so I am back to capturing the screen & pasting file in a pgm. I have always used the PrintScreen key when I need to capture. PrettyDarnNeat posted how to do this by creating a layer, preseting the values, then pasting the captured screen into a new layer. I tried her method thru P.Net & the file was stretched. I can not have that. But might use her technique if I need to take a small frame size & make it a bigger frame size. Other thing was print file then scan printout. When scanning, my scanner software will save file with 300 dpi. Only other way I can take a file that was preset at 100 dpi & turn it into a 300 dpi digital file that I know of at this time. Btw, why isn't there a "preview" command in P.Net? To view your file at full screen while still in P.Net.

YOU ARE RULE! I HAVE BEEN READING ABOUT THE RULE MODS. YOU ARE ONE OF THEM I SEE!

To PrettyDarnNeat: I was curious in your method & decided to runs some test. It is a pretty neat way to crop a photo. Somelthing I had not thought of. I used your method, saved file using 100 dpi, then printed file. I found it blew the pic up. I took original file with 300 dpi & cropped file with the mouse & thru Paint.net & then printed the file. Here are my results. Btw, now I know how to blow up a pic which occationally I need to do, using your method.

I am dealing with photos from digital camera. I have found by resizing, it effects the pixels which effects the printouts. The photos are blurred in other words when I print them later. Background files are 100 dpi. I tried importing photos which are 200 dpi. The photos are off my original first layer & I have to shrink the photo to get photo to fit in that first layer. This effect the pixels causing the printout to be blurred. In Paint.net, I do like the way I can open & work on 2 or more files at one time. This helps me crop one file & then go back to my first file & import the cropped & resaved file.

David why didn't you think of this...... Import all the graphics with same dpi...background or use background as first layer. dpi 100. Import all other graphics such as photo frames, icons etc. dpi 100. Everything but the photos. Print file scan file....now you have a digital file. Depending on scanner, you can set scanner to the dpi you want. (In my case I am going to try to export all the layers to 1 .png file, then export to a pdf. However thru the print command in P.Net I can turn all layers into one .pdf. Why? I have acrobatPro & can export what is in pdf back out as a graphic file. I can set the dpi in AcrobatPro. a lot of scrapbook freebies come in .pdf format. Not everyone knows how to extract what is in pdf without the software that is needed. Irfan's viewer will, as a example, extract what is in the pdf as a graphic file. I goes without saying, Acrobat does a better job of this.) Now with the digital file on hard drive, open fle with Paint.Net, import photos. Save file. Now I got to practic doing this & see how well it print. For several days now, I have been trying to get around this .dpi issue. You got to know what pgms you have & what each will do.

I do not know what your project is...mine is scrapbooking. Something I just thought of is to: import all the files that are of the same dpi. In my case, the background, photo frames & icons are all the same dpi. The actual digital photos is what is screwing me up. They are set at a higher dpi than the other files. Print file, scan print out. Not sure if all scanners will set the dpi at whatever you want it to be. Use the scanned file if already set at say 300 dpi, then open file with Paint.Net, import photos. Save file or resave file. Or second thing that comes to mind is after importing graphics of the same dpi size, save file to hard drive, open file with viewing pgm at full screen...so picture will fill up your screen. take snapshot open Paint.Net creating new layer, set your dpi, now paste the snapshot into new layer. This might work without printing file. I hope this helps you with your project.

One reason for this is your first layer is set at 96 dpi. Your imported file is set at a larger dpi. The actual frame size is bigger than your first layer you created. I am experiencing this problem right now. Sometimes Paint.Net ask me if I want to increase the present canvas size but not always. You need to crop what you are trying to import but if the dpi's don't match, are the same, your imported file will still be too large for what you started with. To help with this situation create you first layer with the same dpi as what you are going to import. If you stretch or shrink graphics with your mouse, it will make your print outs blurry. Changing the dpi's all to the same 300 dpi as a example, does not work either I found out if you are going to print the file later. It distorts the less quality files (ones that are already set at say 100 dpi). I have not found a total solution to this problem yet but am working on it. You can take snapshot of graphic at full screen & save as new file but I have not been totally successful at times. I have been somewhat successful at shrinking files by opening the file with Paint.Net, reducing window screen to say 15%, taking snapshot & saving file as new file. Paint.Net is preset to 96 dpi unless you change that first layer thru the commands to something higher. Hope this helps......

Ok....First layer dictates what follows of what dpi I will end up with. Got it. Now I got to figure out what to do with background files that are set at 100 dpi. They maybe unusable with Paint.Net. Btw, I notice if I change the dpi thru Paint.Net, the file size does not change. Why not? I would think more color would mean a bigger file size.

What better place for me to post my question but here. Your dealing with layers right? Your first layer is set at 100 dpi, if there away for all other layers that are imported for their dpi's not to be changed? I am running into a problem as I am importing several layers & they all have different dpi's. Some of the imported ones look as those they are being down graded to 100 dpi as they will not print well. Other imported files are set at 100 dpi with first layer set at 2-300, the imported ones of 100 dpi will not fit filling up the first layer as it should & appear to only cover first layer about half full. Is there anything I can do to get everything to fit as it should...fill the first layer up, without stretching graphics with mouse? If I stretch or shrink graphics with mouse, pic prints blurry.

Sorry David I will try to have better respect for the rules. You might move some of the above post to the appropriate forum as one mod did do this recently. I am still having trouble figuring out the dpi's. It looks likes from my testing I need to make the first layer at 300 so the photos will come out clear. While I can use Paint.Net for this project, Paint.Net is very slow at handling big file sized files. That is what I experienced the first time I use pgm. Took me 2 days just to create 2 pages. I thought I could use some background files that are 100 dpi, keeping the files down in size, making Paint.net work for me. Those files print very well, it is the photos that look like bloody potato when printed. It looks like to me, if the first layer is 100, everything I import is reduced to 100 dpi. Is this correct?

Look for Irfan viewing program on the net. It will display anything adobe offers including .pdf's.

You might try the "magic wand" within Paint.Net to highlight the hair. Then use the sharpener to make the hair more pronounced. You can download sharpener plugin in the plugin formum. Read instructions on where plugin goes in the plugin forum. I have not played around with "magic wand" that much for your application but believe it will work.