question about printing digital art...

[ratcreature]

I don't own a color printer myself, so usually I don't print any digital art, but just create it for viewing on screen, i.e. I usually scan the pencil sketch at 300dpi, color it in GIMP, and then when it's finished I merge the layers and resize it so that it's a convenient, smaller size for looking at it on the usual 72dpi screen, which has the advantage to make it look better and conceal errors.

But I suspect printing art at 300dpi would still look rather crappy, so I wanted to ask those of you who print their digital art (I'm mostly thinking of digital drawings, I'm not sure whether it is different for photos) which resolution gives a decent result. I'm not thinking of professional printing quality, like graphic designers for print media would need, because I don't own a high end computer and working with huge graphic files with multiple layers in a very high resolution is cumbersome with my hardware limitations, which is why I usually settle for 300dpi, but just a good, clean look if you printed the drawing at the size of the original pencils. Would 600dpi be enough if I wanted to print a drawing later on, or does the resolution need to be even higher? At which resolution do you print your art?

Comments

[xaxona.livejournal.com]

300dpi is fine to print at as long as you have not tried to enlarge the image. Our eyes can not visually tell the difference between something at 300dpi and something at 600dpi (keep in mind this is as long as you have not tried to take an image at 72 dpi and make it 300dpi because THAT would look awful). The only reason you would want to start your work at 600 or 1200 would be if it were toned or if it were going to be blown up larger because you can blow it up until the dpi reaches back down to 300 and still be safe... I don't think that made sense. Ha, sorry. If you scan at 300 and work on the digital image the whole time at 300, then print it, you will have a high quality image. Just don't try to start at 300 and change it to 600 because that would make the quality go down as the computer will have to make up the information in the newly added pixels.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, that you can't regain resolution by just making it larger I knew. I mean, once the information is lost it's lost (or was never there in the first place, I mean the infinite blowing up of pictures only works on tv *g*). No, I usually work at 300dpi from the sketch scan onwards and only reduce the resolution as the last step before I post it. I just assumed since scanners and printers offer better resolutions that you'd need that for a crisp picture.

[xaxona.livejournal.com]

I was always curious about why they offer the higher resolutions since 300 was fine. But, like I said, I think it is for those who tone or for people to enlarge the image. Or maybe it is for people to print at the higher resolutions if they wish to, though there really is no point. 300 makes a file large enough, there is no need to make them twice as huge if you don't have to. You will be safe with the 300dpi. ^_^ Good Luck.

[ratcreature]

Perhaps they do it so you can encrypt extra info in your printed picture and smuggle it, like say it looks like a regular picture when you look at it but when you enlarge it the dots that seemed merged to the eye to one color resolve into something different and form a new pattern you can filter out... *G*

dpi

[annexensen.livejournal.com]

I work in printing and people ususally make these two mistakes---Either they give us digital files where they res'd up a lo res image - (this of course doesnt improve the quality) or they give us a file with a huge dpi. Any file at (one to one) 300 dpi is optimum. That is what we rip the files at anyways to they would be interpolated to 300 dpi. Actually we accept 220 dpi and up for printing.

[teneagles.livejournal.com]

I'm a graphic artist, and I provide all my files at 300dpi, by default. Sometimes clients want 600 or more, but that's for prepress stuff -- it's all going to be reduced when it's sent to print. Anything over 300dpi is going to be imperceptible to the human eye. Most home printers can't even do 300dpi, anyway; for technical reasons, the typical '600dpi' inkjet is actually, effectively, a 150dpi printer.