Cutting large image into smaller pieces for printing

[thefabrickat]

Hi: I tried a search and perhaps wasn't using the right search terms but didn't see anything.

In a nutshell - I am a seamstress attempting to make a pattern. Well, I have made the pattern - drawn it out on a large sheet of paper. I have manually "cut" it into letter-sized parts and scanned those parts onto my computer (with hash marks so that the parts can be matched back up to make the larger whole pattern).

I have spent a lot of time redrawing the lines in paint.net so they are neat and clean and more even. But then I went to print them and sizing is totally messed up and I am just not able to get my brain around this sizing thing. I need to be able to send these files to customers so they can print them out, put them together and have a pattern.

So, in effect, I have a large image that I want to print in puzzle pieces but they must maintain their *real* *life-sized* size. Can someone help me? Or point me in the right direction? Is there a tutorial on this?

I'm attaching one of the individual files. Maybe someone can look at it and tell me what I need to do to it to make it be 8.5" x 11". Maybe I'm on the totally wrong track

Thanks!

[mountnman]

if you used inches in your canvas size, and not pixels, or centimeters, and everything is drawn out life size on PDN, then you probably need to take a look at your printer settings and make sure you are not printing at the wrong size

[thefabrickat]

hmm..

Well, today I am more clear-headed - I had been working all day on this thing yesterday and was getting frustrated .

This is what is happening today:

I made a reference image - I drew a 3/4" frame on the letter-sized paper and then a 1" square in the middle. I scanned it. When I bring it up in paint.net it has a canvas size a little larger than 11" (11.5) so that is one problem - the scanner is adding some length to the picture. (Will have to see if there is some adjustment that I can make on the scanner.)

But here's what I tried - I cropped/selected the image to 8.5 x 11, copied that part. I opened a new file specified 8.5 x11. When I paste I get the message that the image being pasted is larger than the canvas size - and it is {by a LOT}! Why is the 8.5 x 11 selection not pasting at 8.5 x 11? Is there some way I can set it so that it copies and pastes across in the same size? I would be able to deal with it that way.

Unless someone has a better idea?

[mountnman]

a: does the scanner add length or stretch it out? if its adding the 1/2 inch then crop is the way to go, if its stretching it then resize would be better, and yes, the scanners i have owned all had adjustments that could throw off the size

b: are you sure youre not using centimeters, in the canvas size pixel/centimeter is the default, there is a print size control that allows you to change it to inches

[pdnnoob]

Is the scanner scanning at 300 pixels/inch? I believe pdn defaults to 96, so if you set it to 8.5x11 inches, you won't have the same size. In fact, the scanned image will be more than 9 times larger than your new image (more than 9 times more pixels)

EDIT: my suggestion would be to right click on the scanned image and go to "properties" to find out the dimensions in pixels, then make a new image file to match

Edited June 3, 2011 by pdnnoob