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Wonderboy893

Joined: 31 Mar 2006
Posts: 2



PostPosted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 3:07 pm    Post subject: Graphic and DPI question. Reply with quote

I have a graphic question....

A friend asked me to make a clock for her daughter .. didn't think that it would ever be this hard .. I worked forever to finally get a good and even clock template, ... but now I have another problem

she wants disney princesses .. something like this ................

http://cgi.ebay.com/DISNEY-PRINCESS...Qc mdZViewItem

well .. my question is something I've always wondered. How do you get the graphics offline, that are a high enough resolution to be able to be put into a clock and then printed and not come out looking pixelated cause they were at a 72 resolution?

is there a trick to converting them?
cause if I just go the the website and save the pictures, I know that they'l print off poorly

so how do these people get good resolution images that they can use

That goes for anything .. I never understand how people are able to grab high quality images off of websites that are made at 72 resolutions ..
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qubert

Joined: 24 Jul 2004
Posts: 253



PostPosted: Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Welcome to the Photoshop forums.

Here is an explanation to your questions:

DPI, or “Dots Per Inch” is how many dots, or Pixels, are crammed into a inch. The more you collect together, the smoother the image. While “72 DPI” may look fine on a screen, paper requires more pixels to be pushed together. Usually, the target is around 300 dpi. NOW…this isn't the whole story. The real number you need to pay attention to is the raw pixel size of the image (1600x1200, 2048x1536, etc). This is how many pixels are in the photo. The DPI is really just how this pixels are organized…and usually only on Paper.

Here's a few points to consider…

1) You can't get something from nothing.
There is no way to add pixels to an image without degrading the quality. When you scale an image up, your image program has to guess what the new pixels should look like based on the surrounding pixels. This guesswork usually leads to softer images.

2) Maintaining Image size
You can change the DPI without adding or subtracting pixels (this is generally a good thing unless you are trying to optimize it for the web). Simply turn off Photoshop's “re-sample” option at the bottom of the Image Size dialog box. The image size will change but the actual number of pixels will remain constant.

3) Rough size targets
For the most part, if you are printing, you need to 300 pixels for every inch you print. So, a 5x7 needs to be 1500x2100 (about a 3 Megapixel Camera) and an 8x10 needs to have 2400x3000 (a little more than a 6 Megapixel Camera).

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Qubert
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Wonderboy893

Joined: 31 Mar 2006
Posts: 2



PostPosted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 1:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I appreciate all of that info

Could you help me practically?

Using that info, how would I take an image at 72 dpi, and make it large enough, and high enough quality to print it at 300?
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SCync

Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 98
Location: Montreal


PostPosted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

qubert has given you a really good explanation of how resolution works. Have a quick look at this page, which explains lpi, dpi, and ppi.
http://www.design215.com/toolbox/print_guide.php
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sonictk

Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 5



PostPosted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Using that info, how would I take an image at 72 dpi, and make it large enough, and high enough quality to print it at 300?

Quick answer? You cannot.

Quote:
so how do these people get good resolution images that they can use

They use a camera.

But to answer your question more practically, you should probably trace out your character using the Pen tool. That way it will maintain its resolution at whatever size you print it out at. Though, of course, you do sacrifice some detail.
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