Photo DPI

[hayes321]

I have no clue where I should put this, picture section seemed like just screenshots, move it if it should be somewhere else.

I work for this newspaper, its really small, and I run some of the graphics. They have this theory that they have to set every picture to 160dpi. Now they way the printing press works is that they take a picture of the page we have mocked up and then put it into the comp and then print it out. This being said they said in the past they have had photos not set to that they would make the ink bleed. I don't see the reasoning behind this. Wouldnt the camera not be able to capture the space inbetween dots thusforth making this stupid to do. I mean, when ever you turn a pic to 160dpi it makes it a lot smaller, as well. I have no clue and do not think this is necessary. Is this reasoning correct or is it not?

[CingularDuality]

Everyday newsprint is at 160 dpi (this is an assumption, but it sounds about right). Printing out a higher quality photo for your mockup is not only useless, but would only make the editor's job harder as he's not seeing the photo as it's going to look when printed in the newspaper. The lower dpi will more accurately portray how the photo is going to look in the finished product.

There's my theory, anyway...

[Trooper]

Less DPI means less droplets of ink, which makes the pictures grainy. Im not sure why they take a picture of the mock up then transfer it to a computer, you are loosing so much quality with every transfer. Why not scan it in or better yet spend some cash and get a page layout program like Indesign. The ink Bleeding has nothing to do with the DPI of the picture, its the paper and the cheap ink they are using. For perfect prints you wanna go with a DPI of 320, its easier for the printer to calc down to size and proportions. Not sure why but my prof said so.

Just tell them you are loosing quality and picture life if you downsize it. And dont save your pics as Jpegs, use TIFFs. TIFFS keep more info on your pic then Jpegs.

[Trooper]

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Everyday newsprint is at 160 dpi (this is an assumption, but it sounds about right). Printing out a higher quality photo for your mockup is not only useless, but would only make the editor's job harder as he's not seeing the photo as it's going to look when printed in the newspaper. The lower dpi will more accurately portray how the photo is going to look in the finished product.

There's my theory, anyway...

Lower DPI will only look worse when printed on newspaper as its more porous and granular. The editor shouldn't be worried about the output if he is dumbing down his picture quality to begin with. If he wants that he should set the DPI to a higher standard and wait for his final output to be 160dpi.


Thats my theory of his theory....but thats another thread

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Trooper[SNPR]

If he wants that he should set the DPI to a higher standard and wait for his final output to be 160dpi.

Why? That's going to give you the same quality as if you had it at 160 dpi the whole time...

[Trooper]

Not really, setting the DPI higher before printing ensures the output will be close to 160 not less due to the paper and ink. All picture loose clarity and color when printed, especially if on newspaper, now if they are printing on regular printer paper thats another story.

[Steeler]

Sounds like your layout editor is doing it the old-fashioned way. But there's no reason a higher-density photo would make the ink bleed. Ink bleeds when the half-tone is dense enough that the ink required is too much for the paper to absorb. If he's photographing the mock-up and then printing digitally, then he should be able to set the image density to whatever he wants. Really just balance the page to what his printer can handle. Of course, if he had some simple DTP software he could do that with each individual photo.

Cing has a point about the printer's needs, though. If he's working from a mock-up (without refining it further after capturing it), that mock-up needs to look as close to the finished product as possible. If the photos are 160dpi going out, they need to be that way going in, because he's not going to mess with them in between.

[Sumluv59]

Most newspapers run a line screen of 80. Your dpi has to be double your line screen or else your image will pixelate (become fuzzy or jagged). I work on a four color magazine. All of my images have to be 300dpi to print clearly on a 150 line screen press.

I'm kind of confused why they would take a picture of your comp. The only reason why the need to reduce everything to 160dpi, I could only guess it's a time thing. I takes longer for a file to rip/process if it is larger than 160dpi. Time is money.

[hayes321]

We print out the stuff off of pagemaker and then paste it to a big life size page. The point is that the camera would capture everything at the same resolution and would not be able to capture the space inbetween dots anyway. I think its just the fact that its too dark of pic that makes it bleed. Isn't this right?

EDIT: Also we do not print it ourselves, we paste it up and then drive it to a printing press. The printing press is doing it the old fashioned way.

[Maus]

Newspapers print with a linescreen of 75ish lpi (as noted by sumluv - I should read every post before replying), and the standard conversion for images is between 2x to 2.5x the linescreen. Anything more is wasteful and will slow down the process, as that detail won't be printable by the press.


... in fact, scratch my post - it's already been said by people who know more about it than I