Image Resolution Degrades Making Collage.

Please excuse the beginners question here, I'm rather new to Photoshop.
Using PS CS, I'm trying to create a simple collage using layers over a
background image. It all seems to go well until I see the finished project
printed. The original images were taken with an 8 megapixel camera. The
originals look awesome, but when applied to a collage and printed or viewed
enlarged on the monitor, the resolution of the individual pictures looks
more like taken with a 640 X 480 camera. I've been looking for some way to
improve the resolution of the component images in the collage, but I'm not
getting it. Any suggestions would be very welcome....TIA.

 

don't know what your doing exactly but it sounds like a resolution problem,
for print the dpi should be a minimim of 200 pixels/inch and the hight the
better to the thresh hold of your printer. Screen imagege tend to 72 0r 96
ppi and either become very small or look mushy when printed.

Check resolution in IMAGE menu > IMAGE SIZE > pixels/inch for both
pictures.

 

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Thanks for the advice.

 

You probably started off with the resolution too low. As Kingdom suggests,
it's best to start with a higher pixels per inch number when you first
create your image. 200 or even 300 ppi is a good number. For Epson
printers 320 pixels per inch is thought to be a sweet spot.

So you made a boo boo. OTOH - collages can be a lot of work, and you may be
interested in rescuing what you've done so far. I had to do this once when
I realized I'd done an important group shot at VGA resolution (ouch!).

If possible, replace or overlay a few of the more important foreground
elements of your collage with higher resolution versions. Flatten the
collage, and experiment with Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask to make things look
a little better. Don't overdo it with USM - just get a little more edge.
By the same token, with moderation in mind, use curves to bump the contrast,
and Hue/Saturation to make sure your colors are reasonably saturated.
Reduce the print size a bit - use Photoshop to add a nice matte around the
edge using a frame layer and drop shadow.

Each of these moves will make your current result look just a bit sharper.

 

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Thanks for the reply and the good advice.