I should know this. My goal is to upload 72dpi images that are 600px wide to a website. The client insists that I can take the TIFs he provided me with, which are 2400 wide, but only 60dpi and resize them to my goal of 72dpi and 600 wide and that the quality won’t suffer. Is this true?
I did a comparison and can’t say for sure that I see a difference. Thanks a lot for your help. J.
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Thanks. I’m wondering, though, if magnifying the image, say someone viewing this with an 800 x 600 screen resolution, would see differences than one would see on a monitor of 1280×1024?
Again, what i’m comparing is the differnce bewteen a 60dpi image at 600×357 and a 72dpi image at 600×357. The 60 was made from an original 300dpi image and the 72 was made from that same 60dpi, where it started as a 300dpi tif, was sized down to 60, and then up to 72.
My quesion is, would that 72dpi which was made from the 60dpi, appear different on some screens than a 72 that was made directly from the 300? Thanks again. John
a) a person looking at the image on an 800×600 screen will see 100 pixels of white (nearly — there is the browser border) while the person at 1280 will see 340 pixels. This will make the image look smaller, but it will actually be identical. THink of a small picture in a big frame.
b) there is no difference between 60 and 72 ppi images on the web. Only if you print will the difference be a factor.
c) there will be no difference on any screens from what you see, with the exception of color, which depends on the calibration of each monitor.
Based on your original post, you are taking a 2400 wide picture down to 600, which is an exact 4:1 reduction, which should result in very little loss of quality. As has been mentioned before, the resolution means nothing on the web, only the pixel dimensions.
Don, Thank you. I also posted this question on another web forum, because I really need to quickly decide whether I need to have all of these images resized from the original 300dpi scans, and this is part of one of the replies from the other forum: "All that you care about is the number of pixels. You can reduce the pixels, which won’t hurt anything other than the pixel dimensions of the image"
I’m trying to understand this. It seems like you and he have arrived at the same conclusion -that it doesnt’ matter, but that you’re saying it for completly opposite reasons – pixel dimensions vs. number of pixels.
I’m probably missing something really obvious, but could you clarify what you mean? Thanks a lot. J.
Why don’t you resize one of your pictures, save it as a separate file, and post it on a Web site so that you can evaluate the results? Then, instead of having to ask and wonder about the result, you will know. If it doesn’t work the first time, go back to the original picture and modify it again and save it as a different file and try it.
Jim, Thanks. I have done just that, and I couldn’t see a difference. But what I’m concerned with is that someone else might, for example on a monitor with a different resolution setting or on web tv, etc.
Since this if for a website, I have no way of knowing what people will be viewing it on, and I just want to cover my bases and not have this come back to haunt me later, with complaints from people. (There are hundreds of images, and if there’s any possibility that this could be a problem, I need to address it now.)
I’m just looking for a definitive answer on whether these images will look worse on some monitors and whether or not that is something I could avoid by getting them made to 72dpi from the original 300dpi scans right now, rather than making 72dpi imaage from the 60dpi.
If anyone has anything to add, i’d love to hear it. Thanks again. J.
600 pixels is 600 pixels. That’s all that matters. You’re simply trying too hard to find something that isn’t there.
For web purposes, 600 x 600 image at 60 dpi is the same as a 600×600 image at 300 dpi.
Bob
May 6, 2004
"All that you care about is the number of pixels. You can reduce the pixels, which won’t hurt anything other than the pixel dimensions of the image"
I’m trying to understand this.
Every digital image consists of a set number of pixels, let’s say for sake of this example 1500px x 1500px. If you print this image at 5" x 5" then the effective print resoltion is 300ppi (1500/5); however, if you print this image at 10" x 10" then the print resolution is only 150ppi (1500/10). The key thing here, though, is that the actual pixel dimensions have not changed; the image is still 1500px x 1500px.
On the web there are no print dimensions, and therefore no ppi print dimensions. The only thing you need to worry about is the pixel dimensions, and how that relates to the target resolution of your end-viewer. If you make a header graphic, for example, that is 900 pixels wide then someone running their monitor at 800 x 600 will be unable to view the full image without scrolling.
In regards to resizing/repurposing images for the web, set the pixel dimensions to what you need them to be, and then view in Photoshop at 100% (which means that each image pixel is being displayed by one monitor pixel) – if you can’t see any artifacts or other by-products of your manipulations than neither will anyone else, no matter what resolution they are running.
I think this was mentioned in one of the previous comments. The only difference in another resolution is going to make it is in the amount of screen space the image will occupy. If it looks good on your monitor, then it should be acceptable on the other monitors as well.
If you are uncomfortable with that answer, and since you have to do a conversion anyway, why don’t you use the high-resolution images to do the conversion? If the issue is that you have the lower resolution images in your possession, go ahead and bump them up. You are only going to have to make about a 15 percent increase, so that shouldn’t matter. If you are using Photoshop CS, there are some new resampling options (smoother or sharper) that would probably help assure you that you would get the best quality possible.
Since this if for a website, I have no way of knowing what people will be viewing it on…
J., I think the point the responders to your query are trying to make is neither do any of us.
I’m just looking for a definitive answer on whether these images will look worse on some monitors…
I can give you a definitive answer. Yes, they will look worse on some monitors.
is [that] something I could avoid by getting them made to 72dpi from the original 300dpi scans right now, rather than making 72dpi imaage from the 60dpi.
Let’s try again. Your client is handing you an image 2400 pixels wide, which you are going to reduce in size to 600 pixels wide. Can you re-scan the original to get better results? If your client’s scans are clean, probably not. You could re-scan to get an image file that’s exactly 600 pixels wide, thereby eliminating the need to resize at all, but I doubt you’d get noticeably superior results (see last paragraph of post #3 in this discussion.)
Thanks for posting this. Unfortunately, I’m not at my computer anymore. I came over to my dad’s house, where he’s got web-tv. If these 2 photos are labeled properly, while they look identical on his screen, believe it or not the 72 actually prints out slightly sharper than the 300! I don’t know what that means. J.
If these 2 photos are labeled properly, while they look identical on his screen, believe it or not the 72 actually prints out slightly sharper than the 300!
the 300 will PRINT smaller and sharper because the pixels will be packed closer together at 300 pixels per inch than at 72 pixels per inch (but there’s still only 800×600 physical pixels in the image. it’s how they’re spaced on the printer that gets changed with the resolution). but that has nothing to do with what appears on the screen. again PPI ONLY affect the print output, so if your image is for use as a web graphic you can safely ignore the resolution for all intents and purposes.
Thanks. I’m wondering, though, if magnifying the image, say someone viewing this
with an 800 x 600 screen resolution, would see differences than one would see on a monitor of 1280×1024?
Again, what i’m comparing is the differnce bewteen a 60dpi image at
600×357 and a 72dpi image at 600×357.
The 60 was made from an original 300dpi image and the 72 was made from
that same 60dpi, where it started as a 300dpi tif, was sized down to 60, and then up to 72.
My quesion is, would that 72dpi which was made from the 60dpi, appear
different on some screens than a 72 that was made directly from the 300?
Thanks again. John
The DPI resolution does not matter at all for screen display. By default a browser displays an image with one image pixel for each screen pixel. If you have three 600×400 pixel images with resolutions of 60dpi, 72dpi, and 90dpi, they will display exactly the same on-screen.
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