Preserved Topic: print graphics resolution in PS (Page 1 of 1)

what resolution should i use for print graphics when using PS?
like posters, greeting cards, business cards etc.

anyone have an idea?


The worst vice is advice...

300 dpi in Tiff format if it's going off to a printer.

300 dpi should do.

edit: *sigh*

FAQs n' Bits: Michael

*LOL*...sorry

Well... 300 is ok but for a poster?!?!? If people will NOT be getting close to it then a lower DPI will save you memory and make your computer run faster.

Trust me.... I'm making large 89"x100" posters for a convention. Most people wont be looking close at the backdrop so I'm using 120 dpi and my computer runs much faster than if I did it at 300 dpi.

Cheers!!!

Well... depends a lot on two things.
1. What printing process are you using? (process inkjet, laser, offset, etc.)
2. What is the intended viewing situation. If you are holding it in your hand it takes a much higher resolution (300+dpi) than if it's a billboard (72-100dpi).

Also, a good rule of thumb for printing on a process printer is to go half the print resolution. If you plan to output at 600 dpi, then build at 300 dpi, if you are printing on 360dpi on an inkjet printer build at 150dpi. Sometimes you can actually make something look worse if you set the resolution too high. If you are planning on going with an offset/halftone screen solution, you need to find out the linescreen of the destination printer from the signshop.

In short, there is no answer the the question you asked. You need to make a more specific question to get a more firm answer. If you are having a specific problem or encountered a specific scenario then post more details so we can give you a better answer.


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

i was thinking of 300 dpi too, but i thought it would be too much for a business card for example...

it's not that i have a problem, i was only curious about your ways of doing things...

so i guess i'll stick to my 300 dpi :P

thanx


The worst vice is advice...

Business cards aren't that big, so having a high DPI won't really hurt here. Also, scaling an image down (when you've made it too big) still gives a better effect than sizing it up. I also think that on something as representative as a business card you'd want the crispest graphics you could get.



edit: spelling

[This message has been edited by mahjqa (edited 11-21-2002).]

I make all of my print graphics at 150 dpi at double size. Then I size it down and raise the dpi, it makes it so that you take up less memory while in the development process and a larger image, sized down to a smaller image is easier to work with I think.

1 dpi.

When i was doing business cards and setting them for the printer it had to be a 300 dpi TIFF or it wouldn't print nicely.

As a rule we normally have to send everything off to the printers at 300 dpi. Having said that when I had to do a magazine type thing for a contract it had to be a 450 dpi tiff. Most of this stuff we have found depends on who you are sending it to for final printing and how their system is set up. On a home printer you can go to a 150 dpi and do well. Our big printer at the office a Cannon 3100 you really have to do a 300 dpi for most things in order to come out with no problems in the printout. It normally gives us the best quality. If you are doing stuff that nobody is going to get close to then no it doesn't matter. For a poster you'd have in your house like a movie poster. They are normally done with high resolution stuff and you can do it at a lower dpi because the images you are using are just a really good quality.

WHere you get into problems is when you are attempting to use cruddy images and you have to work on them to make them behave. I've even had to do smart blurs to get rid of pixilization in some of my work.

Yes it does slow down a computer using the high dpi's unless you have a high speed low drag puter. Then you only have a little bit of lagging. On a computer that gets bogged down a lot all you have to do is make sure your temp files are cleaned out and that you have enough room on your hard drive. Turn off other applications besides photoshop and the slowdown isn't that bad. Remember when you are processing that kind of memory intensive work your photoshop and pc don't want to play nicely.


Anyhow...that's my two cents ...and i may be wrong *L*

Basically ettie reiterated to greater example what I was saying earlier, the best thing to do is to rely on your print shop. If you are doing offset printing ESPECIALLY, it's important to ask them what THEY need from you and match it.
As for slow down and resolution, sooner or later, no matter how fast your computer is, you will just have to learn to live with the slow down. Ettie made a couple good points about memory management and temp files. The only other caveat I would have in that line is if you plan on working with a giant file, you can always bump up the memory allotted to photoshop to give it a little more breathing room. Basically you want to have, in my experience, enough memory allocated to hold the image plus about 20-30 mbs for photoshop to breath. so if you have a 20 mb image, you should give it about 50 mbs ram. If you have a 100 mb image, you should give it about 130 mbs of ram. etc. etc. etc. It's only a rough guideline though. Also, depending on how your hardware is set up, making sure you have all the extra's turned on in photoshop might help. Compressed swapfile management, asynchronous file write, etc. If you aren't sure about what I'm talking about (I know a lot of people don't know about it), check out some of the extra folders in your photoshop directory, you'll see ... or I suppooooose you could rtfm too.. hehe
Something to consider if you're having THAT much problem with images, RAM is dirt cheap these days. You can drop another 512mb chip into most computers for around $99... that alone will solve most of your large format woes.

$0.02


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

Yup sometimes you do have to pump up alotments on different programs. I have problems with word so I have the techies come in and change the config sys files to handle word as soon as i get a new PC which happens about every year and a half. PC always has as a tendency to lock up and crash when running a huge file. It's a real resource hog.



[This message has been edited by ettie (edited 11-24-2002).]

krets has it half right. I say 2 dpi