If I knew what to look up in the manual, I would!

November 14, 2006 12:01 PM

irritatinglybasicfilter: I made a really big picture in photoshop. It is about 5 feet long. I want to print it, but I can only print one page of the whole picture - a small section of the whole thing. I looked at the photoshop help pages, and searched askme and the internet for help, but I'm afraid I know too little to even understand where to look for the answer to my dumb question. If it matters (I suspect it doesn't), I'm using CS version 8 on my Mac.
posted by serazin to computers & internet (15 comments total)

What you need is roll paper. If you don't have a printer that can handle paper on a roll, then you are stuck breaking up the picture into as many 8.5 by 11 frames as it takes, I believe. You can check in the Page Setup options for Photoshop where you might be able to force Photoshop itself to determine where to make the page breaks. Otherwise, your best best is roll paper.
posted by spicynuts at 12:06 PM on November 14, 2006

This sounds like a job for the Rasterbator.
posted by roue at 12:09 PM on November 14, 2006

I'm happy to have page breaks - I expected that. The problem is, it will only print one of the many pages that the whole document should take up.

When I select print, the first message I get says: The image is larger than the paper's printable area; some clipping will occur.

But I don't want it to clip - I want it to just continue printing on another page. Does that make any sense?
posted by serazin at 12:09 PM on November 14, 2006

Yeah, Spicynuts has the answer- as far as I know and have researched, Photoshop doesn't do that. You need to copy it into 8.5x11 chunks and print those.

I could be wrong, though, and I'd welcome anyone with different information.
posted by fake at 12:30 PM on November 14, 2006

Hmmm...you could slice it, using the ruler as a guide for your 8.5" width, and export out all the slices...
posted by niles at 12:32 PM on November 14, 2006

You could try saving it as a pdf (on Mac OSX, you just print to pdf), then printing it from Preview, or some other 3rd party software.
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:37 PM on November 14, 2006

2nding the call to Rasterbate it.
posted by nathancaswell at 12:40 PM on November 14, 2006

You can tile it.

Previously
posted by mattbucher at 12:41 PM on November 14, 2006

Why do it by hand when Rasterbator will do it for you?
posted by nathancaswell at 12:41 PM on November 14, 2006

Best to import it into your page layout app., as kisch might be referring to (though creating a pdf may not be necessary). Then tile it in Page Setup/Print dialogs.
posted by artdrectr at 12:48 PM on November 14, 2006

Does this work: print / proceed / properties / page setup/ poster printing? I'm not sure if this is a feature of Photoshop, or of my printer, to tell the truth.
posted by iconomy at 1:02 PM on November 14, 2006

Rasterbator is for printing low-dpi graphics as large as you want. It isn't going to be useful for printing a 300dpi image whose dimensions are five feet by one foot.
posted by odinsdream at 1:47 PM on November 14, 2006

I had the same problem a couple of years ago. I never found an answer. Depending on what it's for, you can get them professionally printed. The price will be lower if they're narrow, as you can fit more than one lengthwise on a large piece of paper and then cut it (that is, if you're printing more than one). You're probably looking at well over a hundred dollars, though.
posted by ruby.aftermath at 3:05 PM on November 14, 2006

Adobe Illustrator will let you tile print.
posted by D.C. at 3:45 PM on November 14, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thanks folks! I did it using Illustrator.

I've tried to rasturbate a bunch of times, but for some reason I can never make it work.
posted by serazin at 5:53 PM on November 14, 2006