Because Photoshop is not a page layout program, it’s an image editing program. In MS Word, you define a page, in Photoshop you define an image size. So what’s happening is that Photoshop is reading your printers margins from your default printer and saying "uh, you know you can’t print all the way to the edges right? We’re gonna cut that off automatically because, well, your printer can’t print in that area".
This is similar to the message you receive in Word when you try to make your margins too small so you can fit more on a page – some text lies beyond the printable area: fix/ignore.
Point? Just make your canvas smaller than 8.5 x 11.
Peace,
Tony
Brian,
Adding to Tony’s comments, the reason you saw no problem was because your image layout, presumably, didn’t occupy the full 8.5×11-inch canvas. I’m guessing you arranged the prints with one above the other rather than side by side, since the latter layout would in fact utilize the 8.5-inch width and you should have seen some clipping. Regardless of your canvas bacground being clear (transparent) or any fill color, the full size of the canvas dictates what Photoshop treats as the "document size" for printing.
Also regardless of your canvas size, even if larger than your print media, you can just select the Print With Preview option and check the box for "Scale to fit media". That done, Photoshop will scale the canvas to fit within the printable dimensions of whatever paper size you have chosen. In such cases, if you want to maximize the size of your printed image, you can use the Trim command to trim off extraneous margin space according to the color surrounding your images (even transparent), and then print with "scale to fit". The only drawback to this approach is that your image sizes may vary from what is desired. For example, if you wanted to print a 4.25×4.25-inch image but scaled it to fit the printable area of your paper, the image would wind up more in the neighborhood of being about 8 inches wide.
Hope that helps,
Daryl
Now this is interesting because I get that message too and i just ignore it because i was assuming that photoshop just didn’t know I had a full bleed printer. My images always print on target.
Daryl,
I’ll take Jodi’s "that’s interesting" and toss in—-"oh my gosh, I was not familiar with the print preview and scale to media process"–
I’m a very happy girl right now! Can’t tell you how many times that function will come in handy for my creations!
Yahoo!
Thanks,
Patty
Thanks, that makes sense now. Now I’ve only got 9,999 more questions left…LOL. Learning something New everyday.
Brian, I think I’m perhaps down to 9,901 and counting! 🙂 This forum is probably one of the few places where I’d say learning is fun.
Jodi, I’m not sure how it works, but I think Photoshop’s awareness of the printable area your printer can handle is a function of the printer driving providing such information to Photoshop. For example, if I select "Standard" as the print area in my Epson 1270’s print properties, that informs Photoshop that my top print margin is 0.55 inches minimum. However, if I select "Maximum" and accept that printing to the maximum usable area may find the image less sharp at the edges, then Photoshop shows my margins on all sides to be around 0.11 inches.
Patty, the only thing I don’t know about that "Scale to fit media" setting is how it establishes the resolution. I don’t know if the scaling is performed with resampling or not. If the resolution is changed significantly, that might affect the blockiness of colors in the print.
