PRINT RESOLUTION AND YOUR DESIGN

Let's talk a little bit about resolution. [and we're not talking about losing weight this year]. Let's begin.

In order to help explain why resolution is important to your design and print we'll use a metaphor. Let's assume that resolution is like a pair of glasses. If your glasses (artwork) don't have enough magnification (resolution) the image you print will look blurry. Yes, even if the image on your computer monitor looks crisp, clear, and sharp. In order to make sure that our printers "vision" is 100% you need to design your artwork around 300 DPI.

This part is important: When your file goes to print if you haven't adjusted the resolution to somewhere around 300 DPI before the artwork is created your print-out will produce undesired blurriness or pixilation, and may very-well end up wasting all of your hard work by rendering your design useless for high quality print.

A common mistake amongst most people is that they want to take an awesome image from the internet to use for some full page flyers (internet images are usually 72DPI). So they proceed to use the image or try to alter it's resolution to 300 DPI expecting the same sharpness they see on the monitor. What they don't realize is that the image that was already created at a lower resolution (72DPI for online purposes) will result in wasted printing cost because the finished prints will [more times than not] look blurry and show pixilation. This happens when the DPI is altered after the image was created at a lower resolution.

What does this mean to you?

It means that before you start ANY design for print your resolution should be at a minimum of 300 DPI before you start the design. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but, we believe it's better to be safe, then sorry -and "out of pocket". Any resolution dramatically lower than 300DPI will result in blurriness and pixilation you can't afford to print. See the images below for a visual presentation of what you just read.

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FINAL PRINT OUT.

Resolution set to 300 DPI before any design work was created.

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FINAL PRINT OUT.

Resolution adjustment to 300 DPI after artwork was created at 72 DPI.

Now that you know this, it'll save you a lot of; time, frustration, and money! If your creating your own artwork, always ask yourself, "will this ever be used for print?" and if the answer is maybe, then begin your design at 300 DPI before doing anything else. Keep this in mind while creating your artwork and your final prints will always look sharp and clean! Then again, there's more to fine quality printing than the resolution alone -so, keep reading to learn more.

There you have it, now when you see someone else's printed materials, and they makes you feel like you need glasses, you can say they didn't design the artwork at the proper resolution for print -and they didn't use Silver Studio either!

You can continue reading to learn about print colors vs. your monitor and why what you see, ISN'T always, what you get when it comes to print.

<<.Back__________________________Print colors vs. your monitor>>

Did this article help you understand print resolution? We hope it did. Please let us know if something didn't make sense and we will be glad to better explain this complicated subject. If you ever need any help, feel free to give us a call with any questions you might have. Please ask for Carmelo at (714) 227-3055. Thank you.