Huge Pops of Color through Photography

I took an everyday point-and-shoot photo of a peony in my garden and created this ...

{A 52" wide x 43" tall photo enlargement made with simple photo edits in Photoshop Elements}

Instead of the standard 4" x 6" photo print I did some simple {trust me} photo editing and created this super-sized enlargement on the cheap (in comparison to what it would cost to print as a single image).


The overall dimensions of this, shall we now call it artwork?, is 52" wide x 43" tall.

It consists of (9) 14" x 11" photo sections, printed at a photo shop.  And standard off-the-shelf frames that we DIY'ed into a single unit (link to the DIY instructions at the end of the post).

At one point I laid all the photos out on the dining room table and I could have taped them together on the backside and basically had a seamless single print ...

... I didn't do that because of framing issues.

If I had produced the image in say (4) 14"x11" sections I might have had more framing options.  Think about how you'll frame your art piece when printed; for planning your photo enlargement you can follow my instructions and:

• it doesn't matter what size photo prints you want to use, and 
• it doesn't matter how many "sections" you decide to create

I'm going to share the concept of how to make these {easy} digital photo edits and you can run with this idea and create all kinds of color for the walls in your home!

Simple and easy edits still require  a fair amount of explanation.  This post is long.  If you're interested in learning how I did this, you may want to bookmark this post and come back when you have 10 - 15 minutes to read through, reflect, and play around with one of your photos in your software to practice and apply this information.

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I use Photoshop Elements (PE) but the features I'll talk about are available in all the leading photo editing programs.  And I'm going to talk concepts not specific procedures, (but I will share a screen print of two) so regardless of the program you use, you are going to need to know a bit about the software ... or poke around explore and discover where these features are located :)  But they are in any program, really.

And let me just say it here, cause I won't at each step, save your file periodically as you work.  You know what happens if you don't.  And if you want to keep a copy of the image in an unedited form, "save as" to a different name before you even begin edits, like "peony sectioned" or something like that. I'm just sayin'.

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1) When I opened my photo in PE the default print size was 13.3" x 10".  Remember print size also implies proportion.  If I wanted to keep those proportions I could have doubled the size of the print or cut it in half or thirds or other, without making any changes.  13.3" x 10" is a different proportion than 14" x 11".  Not a huge difference, but any difference requires a little edit.

How do I know for sure the proportions are different?  Divide one number by the other ... doesn't matter which way you divide, just do it the same way for both measurements for comparable comparison.  For ex:

13.3" divided by 10" = factor of 1.33

14" divided by 11" - factor of 1.27

When the default proportion is different from your desired print proportion you will need to crop the image to the desired proportion first before you create, in my case, those (9) print sections.  Don't panic.  The math is behind us.  The hard part is done.  Now you let your software work for you.

2) In PE you can select a specific object (for example, the whole flower bloom) or an area of the image, typically in the form of a square or rectangle.  To crop you want to select an area of the image you want to keep (what isn't selected will be discarded).  In PE you use the Marquee Tool to select an area and this is a fairly standard tool between different software packages.  

Here's where your software will do the work for you: you can set fixed proportions for your selection tool (in PE the Marquee Tool).  I selected Mode: Fixed Ratio and told the system 14 wide and 11 height.  I don't have to say inches, or picas, or whatever ... these are proportions not measurements.  Once I set the Marquee Tool to select a 14 x 11 section, regardless of how much of the image, or how little of the image I click and drag and select, it will maintain the 14 x 11 proportions.  

Here's how it looks in PE ...

{How To instructions for making a "sectioned" photo enlargement using basic photo edits in Photoshop Elements}

3) With the new portions of the image selected, Crop (probably Image / Crop from your menu) your picture.

4) It doesn't matter from this point forward about the 14 x 11 proportions, that's now a given, as long as you equally divide the image into sections.  Once again, a tiny bit of math then let the software do the hard stuff.

5) Let's say you want to create four print sections from your image ... two sections wide and two sections tall.  You've already done that math in your head and know each section will be 50% of the width of the image and 50% of the height.

In my case I went with three sections wide and three sections tall.  OK, you've done that math too ... each of my prints are 33.3% of the height of the image, and 33% of the width.

You want to go all fancy on me?  Two sections wide and three sections tall?  Yes, you can do this ... each section is 50% of the width of the image and .... 33.3% of the height.

So what do you do with this info?

6)  This next step is to simply visually help reassure you.  Do you ever display the ruler when editing an image?  In PE the default measure on the ruler is picas or pixels or some number that means nothing to me.  Did you know you can change how your ruler measures?  This was life changing to me the first time I did this!

In PE to change the ruler unit of measure I go to Preferences on the menu and select Ruler & Units.  For this operation I want the ruler to measure my image in percentages ... I want to easily see where 33.3% of the width of the image is, then 66.6%, and finally 99.9%.

So instead of seeing the default ruler units (units are 0 ... 12) that don't make it easy to divide an image ...

Here's my screen in PE with the ruler set to percentages (units are 0 ... 100)

{Setting the Ruler to display units of measurements in Percentages in Photoshop Elements}

While you're changing the settings for your ruler you could also set the gridlines to percentages too.  That's up to you.  It might be a secondary visual reassurance for you.  Or if you've never used gridlines before it might be too much information on the screen.  Or it could be cool.  You know your style preferences and information needs, so play around with this as appropriate.

Whew.  OK.  You now know what percentage of the photo you want in each of your print sections, and how many sections you are going to create.

You should still have the area selection (Marquee) tool set to the Fixed Ratio of the image.

What you are going to do next is click and drag to select each section of your image that will print, with the area select, COPY, then do a Paste.  In PE the paste will automatically go to a new layer where I'll see just that section.  I ended up with my whole image (on a layer) plus nine more individual layers (one for each section).  Here's a look at my layers (yes, I know I worked out of order on my grid, I was tired, but the point here is different layer for each section to print) ...

7) Finally, each of the section layers become a separate file to send to your printer. In PE I "make visible" only a single layer, then proceed with the routine for Image / Save As.  I did that nine different times.  I named my files "section 1" ... "section 9".  I'm so analytically creative. Is that even a term?

Send your files to a printing service or print at home.  Frame or don't frame.  Hang and enjoy.  And if you do this I'd so love to see a picture of your art!

Bless you if you made it all the way to the end with me.  If you have questions leave them in the comment section so everyone can see them and I'll respond both in the comments so other's can benefit and if you're email is linked to your posting profile I'll email you directly as well.

So thanks so much for stopping by.  Once you actually apply what I've talked about it will seem simple ... if you just read through it I know there's a lot of information, but when you start to work with it and the software does the hard stuff for you, then I hope you'll agree this is pretty cool and do'able.

If you want to read the details for my DIY frame made from 9 individual frames connected into 1, read the original post here.

Enjoy your photo editing!

Robin

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