ADavidhazy wrote:
Hi,
I think it is customary practice for printers to "demand" image files
at 300 dpi (whatever
that is) at final printed size of a reproduction. I guess this is to
reproduce images so
they have a high quality and don't look pixelated or something. (I
think I have
oversimplified things).
Also, this helps makes sure that it's your fault if you don't like how
the image prints -- they're minimizing how much their equipment touches it.
Pixelation is really hard to produce; you have to deliberately do
nearest-neighbor interpolation on a large upsample, or something pretty
unusual like that.
In any case, I was pondering whether one can get a fair idea of
whether an image file has
sufficient digital "resolution" so that when printed it will look
"good" by looking at the
image at a larger size than what it will be reproduced at. So if I
have a 5x5 cm image
file at 300 dpi but I look at it on my CRT or LCD screen at 200% or
300% or 600% or more
magnification and at 300% the image on my screen looks OK ... but at
600% it starts to
fall apart ... is that an indication of anything?
Yes, I think it indicates something. If you think the image starts to
not look crisp, that judgement means something. Now, relating that to
print sizes is going to be another issue. And since screens are rarely
as high as 100 pixels per inch, you're going to be looking at something
rather different from the final printer output generally (of course for
really big prints made to be viewed from far away, I suspect the
printers are actually rather coarse).
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/dd-b
Pics: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum, http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
