[Tea_Bag]

What is the best resolution for printing on A4 paper?


Thanks
Tea_bag

[dflecha3d]

As long as a DIN A4 is 29,7x21 cm, that (using 300 ppp) should be 3508x2480 pixels. That could be the best quality, although i think that such quality in not needed a lot of times. Half the quality should be ok.

[fusionstuff]

It can be a 1654*2338 pixel /inch for res : 200

or 1241*1754 for res : 150

or 827*1169 for res : 100

you cannot be less than 100 for accepted quality .

[dflecha3d]

By the way, yesterday i printed an image on a DIN A2 format (59,4x42 cm------> in theory 7016x4961 pixels to be perfect). My image was 4000x1800 pixels, and we used a glossy paper to plot this. The result was perfect.

[acquiesse]

In my experience it depends alot on the type of image.

If you're printing a photo, the dpi is quite acceptable at 150.

However if you are printing an image with lots of thin diagonal lines / circles, (such as a floor plan) you need at least 300 dpi, and I have used 400dpi (though if you get too high, the printer can't cope with the thin lines and begins to miss them out!)

Hope this is useful...

[Tea_Bag]

So many replies! It basically for my portfolio im trying to put together got a placement year coming up and thought it would be a great idea to get one together!

Thanks for the replies guys!

Thanks
Tea_bag

[jdp]

also you would like to take a look to ivox tut:

http://www.maxwellrender.com/forum/view ... hp?t=18105

[michaelplogue]

Didn't somebody here write a nifty little program that calculates what resolution you need based off of document size, printer resolution, etc?

[mrcharles]

The required resolution (pixels/inch) is a function of the conditions in which the image is viewed...

For my classes, I advise students to print at 200 ppi for images that will be viewed at reading distance.

Images seen from greater distances (billboards, trade show displays...) may be printed at lower resolutions... the key is that you want the pixel sufficiently small that it can't be seen and merges with the remainder of the mosaic.

[ivox3]

Magazine, print ads, portfolio work have an industry standard of '300' dpi ......, but that's just a very generalized standard. It's kind of reached mythic proportions in terms of adherence. As you can see from some of the comments above, ...... resolutions of much much less than that, ..such as 200dpi or even 150 dpi can have very good results.

My suggestion is to print an image with varying resolutions and see for yourself what works best for you with a given printer.

* of course a higher resolution is always better, ...just not always practical or necessary -- it's really image dependent.

[Thomas An.]

Magazine, print ads, portfolio work have an industry standard of '300' dpi ......,

Actually you will be surprised that even high end magazins are printing their ultra-crisp images at about 150-175 (or up to 250) lpi they are not going too crazy with it. The idea is to go as low as possible (not as high as possible)

Also, printer resolution and image resolution are not the same. So a 1440dpi printer does not print at 1440 dpi (it needs several color ink dots to make an image pixel)

A couple of articles (they are old but still applicable:
http://www.digital-image.co.nz/DIT_Resolution.htm
http://www.fotofinish.com/resources/cen ... lution.htm

Black and white laser printer, 300 dpi 53 - 60 lpi
Black and white laser printer, 600 dpi 60 - 106 lpi
Newspaper 65 - 100 lpi
Book (uncoated paper) 120 - 133 lpi
Book (coated paper) 133 - 150 lpi
Color Magazine 150 - 175 lpi
Art Book and Magazine 175 - 250 lpi
Dye Sublimation Printer 206 - 400 lpi
Photo-quality Inkjet Printer, 360 dpi 150 lpi
Photo-quality Inkjet Printer, 720 dpi 250-300 lpi
Photo-quality Inkjet Printer, 1440 dpi 250-300 lpi

[mrcharles]

This brings up a good question... TeaBag... are you asking about offset print sizes or inkjet/photo prints?

High quality offset printing requires a higher ppi image because it needs to be screened to make the printing plates... so request of 300-350 ppi images is common.

Photo style prints are different creatures... the pixel completely covers the paper and visually interacts differently with its neighbors than a screened printing plate dot does with adjacent dots...

Real high-end scaling software can do remarkable things with large enlargements of your images... but they are very expensive...

re. Thomas An's comments...

Beware the differences of ppi, dpi, lpi.... Maxwell gives you pixels and ppi is what you work with when talking about an image. dpi and lpi come into play when you are talking about printing processes that are driven by putting ink on paper on an offset press. If you are making high-end offset prints with your images, you've got to worry about delivering higher resolution images.

[ivox3]

I did say 'generalized' ...

All true though Thomas, .. that's also why I said to do a hard copy on a given printer to confirm results.

Also, .. I have seen in the print / ad world where it's common for an art director to just belt out 300 dpi as being the necessary resolution ---- I believe it's just a conditioned response and one that's hard to break.