Forum Topic: Creativestem Forum - Design for Print

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No web. Just print.

Last post 19 Mar 2008 by

mason

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carly

Everyone post your print questions, answers, queries, wanderings, discoveries, imaginaries, bewilderments, experiments, successes, failures, problems, ideas and suggestions here!

I am unofficial expert!

Reply 16 Aug 2007

meredith

Can you get a decent quality print from a 2.0 mega pixel camera without having to spend hours photo manipulating it inevitably turning it into something completely different?

Quote 16 Aug 2007

carly

Well...
First of all, the mega pixel capabilities of a camera has no bearing on the quality of the picture it will take. Just because you have a $500 2.0MP camera and your friend has a $200 5MP camera does not mean his is better.

Second of all...it depends the size you want to print?

Quote 16 Aug 2007

meredith

i work on photography with someone who just rcvd a 2.0 mp cam today (she said it was a good deal) her really nice one recently broke. im about to find out the res and quality of the pictures it takes, shes going to send me some photographs she's taken with it.

sizes would range between 2"x3" up to 18"x24" maybe larger, whatever the client wants.

my digi cam is a 4.0mp with a crappy 72dpi res (unless i can change the settings somewhere and i dont know how - this camera was given to me) - i know with this my photos are not print quality/worthy and only take photos decent enough to work with if its in the middle of the day and the sun is shining down and close up. or i have extremely well lighting.

Quote 16 Aug 2007

carly

Basically up to this point it then depends on what one would describe as 'decent' quality, what you yourself and the client would be happy with.

But generally to get good quality you need 300dpi on your images at 100% print size. Just check in the image size settings in Photoshop. This is a bit subjective and would depend how you're printing them also. For instance if you have a really smooth gloss stock you would notice the image quality much more then say a textured paper.

300dpi is optimal quality, you can maybe go down to 200dpi and still be decent it really depends on the image. Like you said if it has lots of detail or not...and the size it's being printed.

It is hard to judge though as I had many clients that would manually change their images to 300dpi from a 72dpi image and expect it to print high quality!

If you're sending anything to get offset printed the printers will ask you for 300dpi images. If they say anything less then they are idiots.

If you are unsure, just zoom into your image at 100%. If the quality looks crap then this is generally how it will look when printed! For high quality images you want to be able to zoom into like 300% and the image still look good on screen.

Hope that helps

Quote 16 Aug 2007

meredith

yes i have experience with the optimal print quality.. i have actually dealt with a printer once who wanted 1200 minimum dpi on an image i created at 300dpi, which killed my computer trying recreate btw (another story!).

i guess what i really was uncertain of was the mega pixel in perspective to the print quality and now i know that it has nothing to do with it. but while we are on the subject (if you know) what does it have to do with the actual photography?

Quote 16 Aug 2007

carly

Well I would have to say that printer is rubbish! Unless for some strange reason they planned on upscaling the image you sent them? Anything above 300dpi at 100% size really does not make much a difference.

I once had a pop-up banner (print size 2metres x 1metre) printer tell me to submit my artwork at 100dpi so it transfers through their network quicker and they would upscale it to 300dpi during printing!

In terms of camera quality, I am really no expert in this category and sometimes only find stuff out that luis tells me while he is researching for buying a new camera!

BUT... I suspect this is part marketing tool so they can exploit the fact that their brand spanking new camera is 10MP!!!!!!!l:S/LJJFGFKJMDF1!!!!! *simulate big flashing lights*....while being able to hide the fact that less knowledgeable people don't know the difference. The amount of times I heard someone say "hey look I got a new camera", me; "it sucks" "but it's 10MP!!!!" is enough to drive me nuts. Okay I not heard it that many times but I am imagining this line being said million times over around the world!

Yeah...in my opinion it's all marketing. Knowing that not that many people print their photographs bigger than 4x6 is enough for manufacturers to get away with it. You just want it so you can say you have it!!

I don't really know if manufacturers state the info about native resolution in their fine-print specifications so I'm not sure how you would be able to tell if a camera is good quality or not other than by reading reviews?

Quote 16 Aug 2007

meredith

yep true true. everything ive ever printed at 300dpi looks great.

ive always felt subconsciously that the megapixels is just that flashy marketing mumbo jumbo propaganda. i guess though, i will find out the truth soon enough when i see samples from the camera

thanks again for your "unofficial" help!! :]

Quote 16 Aug 2007

carly

No problem :]

Quote 16 Aug 2007

noir

A traditional press has a static LPI (lines per inch) and your image DPI will need to be at least twice the LPI of the press to maintain good quality. In some cases less than 300 DPI is acceptable if the LPI of the press is lower then 150 (when I worked in prepress we did work with houses that had a line screen between 100-120). Of course the higher the LPI is the smoother the printed piece will look and for a full tonal range you need to go to a higher LPI press - the lower ones just cannot do it.

Digital printing is a different animal all around and I am not sure I am big on the quality of even the highest quality images as the digital presses (discluding a digital process to burn plates for a traditional press) as they have issue with grey scale. I actually had a pseudo drawdown down this morning as I have to do a piece in gray scale of a digital press and I am not real big on the moire pattern it produces. My original is vector so you can't get much smoother then that!

Many times for imagery that is being printed on a large format printer you can easily get away with 100-200 DPI as the process is really forgiving.

OK I will shut up now - lol - I can ramble on all day about printing ;)
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** This space for rent **

Quote 17 Aug 2007

noir

*drawdown done - not down

/shuffles over to recommendation area to add in the ability to edit ones stupid typos...
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** This space for rent **

Quote 17 Aug 2007

carly

This is a good point Shelley.

I am used to working with 300lpi presses so I sometimes forget you can get away with a lot more with low definition!

It may depend on the type of press being used but in my experience going any higher than 300dpi on a 300lpi still did not make much a difference. I suppose it could depend on what you are printing also...photographs especially would suffer more.

There are some really amazing digital presses being released at the moment, if you need to do a lot of digital printing it is definately worth investigating into the model of the printer the printing company has. Though I do only know about the Australian market so I am not sure what is available in US.

I have heard the indigo press is good, but I have never seen sample printouts from one so I have no idea to put my word on it. Dec 06 in Australia Canon released their C1 press which I have seen many samples from, the results are quite pleasing.

I am sure there are more good digital presses out there...I just don't know of many :]

Quote 17 Aug 2007

mason

I currently run and print a magazine called, the Jist http://thejist.info

Anyways - we do about 300 copies a month on normal letter paper (which is folded in half to create the zine)

Right now I'm looking for a way to print them cheaper and in colour.
What kind of paper would you suggest and do you have any suggestions as to printing places/publishers?
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A place for the thoughtful to think, and thoughtless to reconnect. The Jist - Art, Philosophy, Culture Zine

Quote 19 Mar 2008

carly

mason said:

I currently run and print a magazine called, the Jist http://thejist.info

Anyways - we do about 300 copies a month on normal letter paper (which is folded in half to create the zine)

Right now I'm looking for a way to print them cheaper and in colour.
What kind of paper would you suggest and do you have any suggestions as to printing places/publishers?

In terms of finding printers, it all depends where you live?

As for paper, it often depends on your printer. Different printers can have different paper stocks available at different prices, what might be the cheapest for one place is not for another. As a guide though, if you're printing 2 sides in full colour you wouldn't want to go any lighter than a 115gsm stock.

I would recommend contacting a few different printers in your area and sending them a few pages from your layout. This will help to give them an idea of ink coverage. Make sure you give them all necessary specifications and from here they should be able to give you a couple of different options for paper stocks. Given your limited run of 300 though, it's likely you might find it quite expensive...it's possible it would be cheaper for you to print 1000 instead. Obviously...the more you print the cheaper it will be...

Quote 19 Mar 2008

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