Yes, that sounds familiar, but you still are the judge of what is working best. It is a combination to find the best settings for output speed – optimum time, and reproduction – optimum quality. For inkjet, I would think that you could get away with dialing down your image to 150 or 170 ppi and then look at the results compared to 300 ppi. You may see no perceptible difference, and yet save half the processing time.
chris,
If I’m following what you are saying…
I think you’re overcomplicating your inkjet printing. And you may be confusing 360 and 1440 dpi (dots/inch) printer ink droplet density with your image’s ppi (pixels/inch) resolution. The printer has to print a number of droplets to form one pixel from your image.
If you want good quality prints, use your printer’s 1440 or higher dpi inkjet output with a 240-300 ppi image (@ 100% scale — although images as coarse as 150-200 ppi may be satisfactory) and you will be fine, regardless of the paper. Your printer’s 360 dpi is for draft quality imaging only.
Neil
Modern inkjets have very high dpi settings to produce photorealistic tonal quality at an effective resolution around 360 ppi. Use the highest setting for final output. Your image resolution as input should be no higher than what you can determine to be a discernible difference in output, usually somewhere between 240-300.
Always best to scan at max so that you can enlarge if necessary. No one can see more than 600 dpi at output size.
You will get many opinions on the "best" way to approach file resolution. But, in general, the workable range is from about 180ppi (at the low end) to 360ppi (at the high end.) However, there are images that will print wonderfully at 130-150ppi. It’s all a matter of image content. Low frequency images (not a lot of detail, smooth gradations of tone) can be fairly low resolution. High frequency images (lots of fine detail) need to be higher resolution. I think it’s fairly well accepted that there’s no reason to go higher than 360ppi.
All of this said, the proof is in the pudding. The advice that’s been given in the other posts is correct. Make some prints of several images at differing resolutions, look at them and judge for yourself. Choose what looks best. Don’t obsess too much about the math.
Thankyou guys, you are all probably right. That is my weakness, I can get to bogged down with technicalities. tha maths was fun, but irrelevant.
Chris.
Just to add some goo–it also depends on the picture. A panoramic nature shot might look find at 180, but a cityscape with lots of lines at angles might be a problem at lower rez.
I agree with the consensus that you need to test look at your output–nothing beats real world eyes.
alan
