4.2.09

The 300 dpi Solution

10 comments:

Jac said...

Brilliant, I love it!

I think maybe for the blog you're ok with 300, means people can't rip off the good stuff either. As long as you have a high-res archive or the real thing it's all good :D

Christopher Downes said...

I've still got the real thing. I'm tossing around the idea of not rescanning the artwork and printing the first half in 300 dpi. This whole comic is about the process of learning and the inevitable mistakes that I make along the way. Maybe it would be good for people to actually see that there is a difference when you scan things at a higher resolution.

Anyway, I'm scanning in at 1200 now.

Anonymous said...

are you SERIOUS??? I was told years ago it was 300 and only recently started scanning at 600 just to be safe. BLERG! Well, looks like I'll be scanning at 800dpi or more from now on. Sigh...

Anonymous said...

This one has to be one of my favourites. I love how you've referenced the way you looked in the early days of the blog. On the original artwork of this comic, it's fun to see the ballpoint pen lines compared to the inked lines as well. Yippee! It's great!

Jac said...

The impact of the res differences will depend on how large the reproduction is. If the book is smaller than the originals you won't really notice. I guess it also depends on the quality of the print.

All our figures for scientific publication have to be submitted at 1200 but they usually end up dropping in down pre-press.

I like the idea of the low res being part of the learning curve tough.

Christopher Downes said...

I'm gonna shrink it down a bit when I print it. I looked at how large it would be if I changed the resolution to 600dpi and the comic is miniscule!

Dojang said...

yeah, you should print out a trial page at a4 size, or whatever size you wanted with your resized 300dpi scan, and see how it looks. if you see something other than what looks like a poorly managed black and white tetris game, you're golden. most people can't really tell. it's only when you're in colour or working with larger more detailed work that you REALLY have to worry about res. 300 should be dandy.

Anonymous said...

Like others have said, you should be fine with 300dpi.
Pretty much all of my print work has been requested at 300.
Unless you're planning on printing large high end style, then there'll be no problems. Esp since it's black and white!

Looking forward to HOLDING the end product!

Anonymous said...

Sooooo Yeahhhhhhh I am not all that knowledgable here about "dpi's" and 300 vs. 1200, etc. I just think this is one superb comic.


Is that allowed?
Your always-impressed and admiring sister

David Ano said...

I never went this far before, so this is the first time I read this comic ...

Let me tell you about dpi. As somebody who has worked as an artist, a graphic designer, digital press press and more ... 300 dpi is all you really need. That is what we output the plates for offset printing anyways. The whole 1200 dpi is for BITMAP only, but if you have grayscale files 300 dpi is fine. What the whole issue with 1200 dpi for bitmap is for one bit images (either black or white per pixel). Greyscale images are saved at either 8 or 32 bits of information per pixel. Simply puts 8 x 300 = 2400 so you get better quality out of a 300 dpi greyscale image than a 1200 dpi bitmap.

so for godsakes do not rescan!