See inline responses please.
Matt Beals
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Matt,
to enlarge the document on their end. They're just not wanting to do
that. It is simple as that. <<
'Fraid not. Yep, they could could enlarge it, and all those 96 dpi
images would be about60 dpi - great for printing, huh?
Yes, that's true. All the images would become lower resolution because
you are enlarging rather than reducing. But if we're talking about large
format output and posters then they aren't meant to be viewed from less than
18 to 24 inches. So the low resolution will be compensated by the eyes
because your eyes will not be able to see the pixelization as well as it
could if the viewing distance was shorter. How do you think billboards are
printed? We're not dealing with forty foot wide 300 dpi images which would
be tens if not hundreds of gigabytes in size. Posters don't need to be
created at full size, proportionally yes so that they can be enlarged.
Otherwise the file size becomes unmanageable for many people very quickly.
You're more often than not dealing with images that are under 150 dpi. And
at 18 to 24 inches they look *really* bad. But that the intended viewing
distance they look perfect. Eyes are funny things... They love to play
tricks on the brain. Or is it the other way around? Either way, you can't
entirely trust them. Most of the inkjet printers use a form of stochastic
screening or dithering to fool the eye into thinking that the image being
produced is continuous tone. Which is precisely what halftone are supposed
to do. Funny how that works....
understand/know the options that *they* have available. You could always
calculate the enlargement yourself and tell them to enlarge it when
x-amount when they print it. <<
Sounds to me like it is a printer that wants his/her output to look
decent, one who doesn't want to spend hours resampling images and text
to output at a larger size. No way could it be the fault of an idiot
designer who doesn't submit vector files that can be enlarge without
degradation. Nope, lazy printers - that's the answer.
Resampling images up will do nothing for you but at bulk to a job. All
you will be doing is resampling the existing image with more pixels to
describe the existing pixels. It won't add any quality. If anything it will
soften the image. Upsampling only works up to about 150% without the use of
fractal imaging plug-ins or tools. Even then the effective "quality" is
relative to the original image and the viewing distance. See how viewing
distance keeps coming up? The job that I had printed using 10 micron
stochastic screening was beautiful. Except for the pixels that I could see
from the 300 dpi image I was using. Upsampling that to 1200 DPI on a 35x42
job wouldn't have done me any good. And considering the viewing distance of
the poster, no one would even know.
It's true that vector art will always reproduce better because of its
inherent nature, mathematical formulas and postscript commands to describe
an otherwise ethereal object or group of objects. Raster images don't have
those benefits. There is a practical limit to what you can do with a raster
object for this kind of purpose. It is the "point of diminishing returns".
When is there enough without being over kill? When I've designed billboards
and other large format (and 24 x 36 does qualify as large format) you need
to keep in mind those practical limits. It's about managing expectations and
understanding the target audience.
In general I would challenge some to a blind test to differentiate a 200 dpi
image to a 300 dpi image. In most cases the average person can't tell the
difference. To who's eye are we judging the quality? The person designing it
or the person viewing? If it's not pleasing to the viewer then the designer
hasn't done their job.
It's all about managing expectations and understanding the target audience.