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Paul Stark
Paul Stark
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PPI for graphics vs. photos

Apr 14, 2012 8:55 AM

I am aware that I need a mimimum of 300 ppi for photos to produce a nice looking print publication. But what about graphics? Does the same PPI apply or do I just look at the image on screen or print a sample and see how it looks?

 

I ask because it's a lot easier to get away with lower res graphics, even 72 ppi, in Pr Pro than in ID.

 

Thanks for your guidance.

 

Paul

1152 Views   14 Replies   Latest reply: Paul Stark, Apr 15, 2012 9:20 AM
 
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  • Peter Spier
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    1. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 9:38 AM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    What do you mean by "graphics"? What's the file format? Vector graphics don't have a resolution, but if you are talking about rasterized charts or the like, you actually want higher resolution than for photos.

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    2. Paul Stark,
    Apr 14, 2012 9:39 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    PSD's.

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    3. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 10:12 AM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    Color, black only, grayscale? What sorts of things are these?

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    4. Paul Stark,
    Apr 14, 2012 10:24 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    Graphic sample.JPG

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    5. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 10:48 AM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    Is the type part of the image, or added in ID?

     

    From my perspective, the only thing in that capture that should even be possibly a raster image is the circular grouping in the bottom center, and even that could probably be done as vector. If the type and hard edges are part of an image, you'll want at least 600 ppi, in my opinion, to avoid the jaggies for anything not true horizontal or vertical.

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    6. Paul Stark,
    Apr 14, 2012 10:58 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    Only the two large rectangular images are 100% psd's. The other 4 are 100% ID.

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    7. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 11:18 AM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    I would make those in Illustrator or ID, myself. Are those supposed to be functional buttons?

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    8. Paul Stark,
    Apr 14, 2012 11:31 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    No, this will be a manual, so they're just fill-in-the-blanks buttons.

     

    As far as recreating these in IL or ID, I've never done that, so I'm imagining another huge learning curve. I used free stock images and they are the images on the DVD, so they match exactly, which is ideal. Creating them from scratch in IL or ID may be beyond my "pay grade".

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    9. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 12:36 PM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    Press output, or digital? For digital you can get by with less resolution, but 72 ppi is really pushing your luck. And there's likely to be a dramatic differnce in the appearance of the images vs. the native ID vector objects.

     

    Have you pulled a sample print on your own printer?

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    10. Paul Stark,
    Apr 14, 2012 3:31 PM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    Right now, digital. But I'm picking up some premium inkjet paper shortly and will be testing it. The grayscale sample printed on plain paper was, well, mediocre. I guess there's no easy solution to this.

    Do you know of a way to work with the original psd's in photoshop or illustrator to get the ppi up?

     

    Thx.

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    11. Peter Spier,
    Apr 14, 2012 6:13 PM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    In general, upsampling in Photoshop is an exercise in futility. You're just making up pixels out of nothing.

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    12. Paul Stark,
    Apr 15, 2012 7:12 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    The sample from my Canon MP830 on premium inkjet paper is acceptable, although I can see I'd like native ID vectors better, so I may play around with this.

     

    On a previous test a couple weeks ago, I got my printer to print borderless (it has an option for this), but I can't duplicate it now and I can't remember whether I printed it from ID or PDF. Do you happen to know what setting I'm overlooking because I've tried just about everything and still get borders of various sizes and in various places, depending on the setting?

     

    Thx.

     

    Paul

     
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  • Peter Spier
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    13. Peter Spier,
    Apr 15, 2012 7:21 AM   in reply to Paul Stark
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    Borderless page sizes are generally selected in the print driver (click the setup button in ID's print dialog and ignore the warning) and the page size inthe print dialog is then set to Defined by Driver.

     
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  • Paul Stark
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    14. Paul Stark,
    Apr 15, 2012 9:20 AM   in reply to Peter Spier
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    No, I remember now. It was that Multi-Page Importer script that did it.

     

    Thx.

     
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