Okay, so I have to admit that I really just wanted to write this one because the title kept ringing in my ears.
But I had a really great conversation the other night with a generous artistic soul who called me to help me understand some things about dpi's and vector vs. raster, and there were some ideas about size that came to light and that I think are worth sharing.
I have been wondering what to do about creating banners for Surtex and similar events. In the past, I created a very large poster, and it was pixelated badly. Not pretty. (But I believe I did it in PowerPoint or something, before I knew Photoshop, so...there ya go). In any case, to be sure that I was going to be prepared, I asked my LinkedIn friends from the Art of Licensing Group how to make sure that that didn't happen with banners, which are oh-so-large, and one of them was kind enough to call me on the phone.
Q: Since Photoshop is a raster-based program (pixelated), and Illustrator is a vector-based program (computer-generated images that don't ever get pixelated), and I work mostly in Photoshop, how do I make sure that my images are going to come out correctly?
She used to work in printing, and here is what she recommended:
A (1): If you are going to be blowing images up to very large banner sizes, talk to your printer!
(Now, I don't yet have a printer professional, but clearly I will now go find one that I can work with affordably and coherently!)
A (2): When you scan an image into Photoshop, make sure that it is already decently sized. If it is a 1" x 1" image, you might want to enlarge it and then scan it in. You can always shrink something more easily than enlarging it, in Photoshop.
(This was a "d'uh" moment for me, as well as a "d'oh" moment. This solution had never occurred to me.)
That will take up more space in your computer, of course, being a larger image, but if it is an image that you are wanting to make into a banner size, I can't see how that wouldn't work for you!
After lots and lots and lots of questions from me to poor, unsuspecting people, and rather failed efforts to understand the whole thing...never mind. When it comes to size - and we have to admit that in some artistic cases it does matter - the best thing of all is to make a professional printer your best friend and get them to tell you how to do whatever you need to do.
Now that I can understand!
But I had a really great conversation the other night with a generous artistic soul who called me to help me understand some things about dpi's and vector vs. raster, and there were some ideas about size that came to light and that I think are worth sharing.
I have been wondering what to do about creating banners for Surtex and similar events. In the past, I created a very large poster, and it was pixelated badly. Not pretty. (But I believe I did it in PowerPoint or something, before I knew Photoshop, so...there ya go). In any case, to be sure that I was going to be prepared, I asked my LinkedIn friends from the Art of Licensing Group how to make sure that that didn't happen with banners, which are oh-so-large, and one of them was kind enough to call me on the phone.
Q: Since Photoshop is a raster-based program (pixelated), and Illustrator is a vector-based program (computer-generated images that don't ever get pixelated), and I work mostly in Photoshop, how do I make sure that my images are going to come out correctly?
She used to work in printing, and here is what she recommended:
A (1): If you are going to be blowing images up to very large banner sizes, talk to your printer!
(Now, I don't yet have a printer professional, but clearly I will now go find one that I can work with affordably and coherently!)
A (2): When you scan an image into Photoshop, make sure that it is already decently sized. If it is a 1" x 1" image, you might want to enlarge it and then scan it in. You can always shrink something more easily than enlarging it, in Photoshop.
(This was a "d'uh" moment for me, as well as a "d'oh" moment. This solution had never occurred to me.)
That will take up more space in your computer, of course, being a larger image, but if it is an image that you are wanting to make into a banner size, I can't see how that wouldn't work for you!
After lots and lots and lots of questions from me to poor, unsuspecting people, and rather failed efforts to understand the whole thing...never mind. When it comes to size - and we have to admit that in some artistic cases it does matter - the best thing of all is to make a professional printer your best friend and get them to tell you how to do whatever you need to do.
Now that I can understand!
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