Hello Guys,
Good morning for some, good afternoon for others. It's been a while since my last visit to the forum. Been quite a hectic time for me. ::) Now I need your expertise.
I wonder if you could be so kind and help a begginer-artist-aspiring-pro like me to understand a little better how I should prepare my renders to be accepted by the Artstation print "policy". There are several points that confuse me... As a reminder, here are the Artstation's requirements:
1. JPG (lossless, 100%) or PNG
2. RGB only - Don't convert your files to CMYK
3. Use sRGB color profile (important, please read below)
4. 300 pixels per inch (see below if upscaling images)
5. Maximum file size 100MB
6. Avoid unnecessary texts and letterboxing on the image (see below)
Now, here are the points I really have tough time understanding... ???
1. (Clear)
2. Terragen renders are RGB by default, are they? Also, does resaving the output .tiff as .png or .jpg runs any risk of an inadverent conversion to CMYK?
3. How do I make sure that an image has an sRGB color profile? Or is it done by default when saving as .png or .jpeg? The problem is, I do not use Photoshop (I can't afford it) so...
4. I get the calculation method, but just want to make sure. If I want to offer a 20x11.25 inch image, does that mean that the render should be 6000x3450 px?
5. (Clear)
6. (Clear)
I'm sorry to bother you like that, I'm sure these are quite basic questions... For my defense, I can only say that these requirements have taken me by surprise. Then again, I do understand that something that looks good in your social circle may be too little for a demanding customer... In any case I'll be really grateful if you could help me better understand how I should prepare my work for print!
2. and 3.) Under Project Settings hit up the Colour Management tab.
4. I believe that's DPI of the image. 300 DPI is usual low base for print. Not positive.
It is weird they wouldn't allow CMYK considering most printing methods use CMYK such as Office Depot, Fedex and Copy Print. I always thought CMYK was literally based on print colour profiles.
Quote from: WAS on September 21, 2020, 03:25:08 AM2. and 3.) Under Project Settings hit up the Colour Management tab.
4. I believe that's DPI of the image. 300 DPI is usual low base for print. Not positive.
It is weird they wouldn't allow CMYK considering most printing methods use CMYK such as Office Depot, Fedex and Copy Print. I always thought CMYK was literally based on print colour profiles.
Colour Management - check. Should be there, even in my free program. If not, a weekly Photoshop sub. ::)
They explicitly mention pixels per inch.
2: yes, no
3. I think sRGB is default
4. yes
Quote from: Dune on September 21, 2020, 05:07:59 AM2: yes, no
3. I think sRGB is default
4. yes
Cool. That clears my mind considerably. Thank you.
What I wonder though is whether only some fixed aspect ratios mentioned here (https://help.artstation.com/en/articles/86-image-requirements-for-prints) are allowable? Or can I just add any aspect ratio I wish as long as the 300 PPI requirement is fulfilled? What about the popular 16:9 for example?
Does anyone have any experience when it comes to that? (I have actually sent them an e-mail too. The more sources, the better. ;) )
If they don't specify ratios, I'd think it's the artist's decision. But that's my opinion.
QuoteWhat I wonder though is whether only some fixed aspect ratios mentioned here are allowable? Or can I just add any aspect ratio I wish as long as the 300 PPI requirement is fulfilled? What about the popular 16:9 for example?
You should ask about this. Standard print sizes are different from video, and the sizes listed here may be the only ones that they offer.
If you save your files as tiffs the color profile should be set to sRGB.
For a less expensive alternative to Photoshop you might check out Affinity Photo. The license is very inexpensive (and is not a subscription) and the application is very full-featured. At the very least you will be able to check the color profile and ppi for your images, and also resave them as jpegs which will make it easier to send the images by email, etc.
Good luck! Please let us know how it works out.
Quote from: N-drju on September 21, 2020, 03:36:34 AMThey explicitly mention pixels per inch.
Pretty sure it's the same thing. Where PPI is monitor/digital based, DPI is physical/print. The pixel in a digital image is equivalent to a dot in a printed picture. I know of no way to set "PPI" in any image editor, because they use DPI/Resolution. PPI is usually set on scanners, when scanning something physical.
Also GIMP is still free, and has better features than PS currently it seems outside gimmicky stuff like 3D mode.
QuoteThe pixel in a digital image is equivalent to a dot in a printed picture.
This is definitely not true.
You are right in that DPI is used to describe the resolution of output devices, but that is different from image resolution or PPI. A 300-ppi image can be printed on a 1200-dpi laser printer, for example, or output as an offset plate using a 2400-dpi imagesetter. But it's still a 300-ppi image in PS or any other application.
Not to be confused with either of these terms is lines per inch, which measures the resolution of the halftone screens used to reproduce continuous tone images in print.
The final quality of the printed output is determined by the relationship between these three values. 300 ppi is the standard adopted across the industry because it is is a good base level resolution that works well with many output devices and halftone screen sizes.
I'm sorry, but if you document resolution is 72 (default for PS for example), your DPI is 72. Both Pixel Resolution and Dots Per Inch. There's no other way to define it because they are equivalents in different mediums, digital based on pixels and physical images based on pixels rendered as dots. That's why your only settings are pixels/inch pixels/cm because this is relating to physical dimensions.
A 300 ppi would be the scale for a scanner translating to digital medium. Having the scanner scale differently is irrelevant.
That's why you don't see a difference in digital, because this is data for print.
As a matter of fact, walking into FedEx and giving them a file they'll ask if it's at least 300 DPI for printing, you set this with Resolution and PPI. For example basic 72 resolution image would be a blur fest due to printing scaling, or come out miniature (to respect the files resolution scale).
Jordan, sboerner is right. This is an old confusing thing that comes up every time.
"DPI has nothing to do with anything displayed digitally! And this is where a lot of the confusion occurs."
From here:
https://photographylife.com/dpi-vs-ppi
Short information direct from Sony for example:
https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00027623
There was a good page many years ago. If i can find it i will post it here.
Found it:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,10040.msg104639.html#msg104639
Thanks for the links, Kadri.
Jordan, the problem is that for years people have used the expressions ppi and dpi interchangeably. When I started in the graphic design business (many moons ago) the dominant term was dpi for all uses. People still confuse the two, despite the fact that vendors such as Adobe and Sony have made a concerted effort to distinguish between them and to educate people on the difference. And it's an important difference. PPI is for virtual resolution, DPI is for hardware resolution.
I guarantee you that the printer you use at Fedex is not a 300-dpi device. That would result in terrible quality. They require a 300-ppi image because the (virtual) pixels need to be small enough to provide at least one pixel per halftone dot. The halftone dots themselves, in the output device, are formed from several -- sometimes many -- hardware dots. The finer the output dpi, the higher halftone screen you can use, and the higher the quality.
The reason you get terrible quality with a 72 dpi image is because the virtual pixels, enlarged to fit the output size, now overlap many halftone dots and become visible, creating a pixelated and blurry image.
I work with these numbers every day, and have always insisted that clients provide 300-ppi, RGB images. Sometimes that's a battle, because the importance of image resolution can be very, very difficult to explain to laypeople.
Usual basic fundamental misunderstandings, like usual.
DPI is literally dots per inch in spacial printing. Nothing today is rendering images [in digital space] using DPI, unless you're on archaic hardware for old monitors, which were ironically approximating print (ever notice how your old CRT mimicked printed text?). Like I've already said, PPI is used as a conversion for DPI to set the scale on paper (printing). PPI/DPI does NOTHING to the actual image, not even in rendering hardware unless you're on archaic computers and monitors approximating DPI. This is why it's Resoltuion/PPI on computers because it literally is a digital photo. There is no such thing as DPI in this realm.
However, printers don't even use 1:1 DPI and print at much smaller scales, but PPI is still used to calculate the DPI for Printing (mind you, this is what we're talking about, printing with art station; where your PPI of 300 equals the base 300 DPI of common printing).
In Scanning DPI is 1:1 still, where DPI is especially crucial. For example 300 is actually pretty noisy, and would provide a bad scan of art, good for smaller books. The PPI of this physical printed file at 300 DPI scanned will be 300.
To set a PPI of 300, for them to handle for the PRINTER to print in DPI ratio (calculated much smaller than 1:1), you set the Document Resolution to 300. That's what he has to do.
---
Additionally, the reason FedEx does this is because if you hand them a JPEG at 72 DPI, and tell them to print a poster, you'll end up with a blur show. Because they scale up with the print (to your requested size). If you don't scale the image it would be forced to render at scale, which is 72 dots per inch, resulting in a drastically smaller image than the poster you intended.
For example the image below simulates this effect, which is why the 72 dpi is blown up.
Classic Jordan ;D
You don't have even read those links most probably.
But here another one:
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,24460.msg248514.html#msg248514
If you still not change your mind this is for you then (sorry for some grammar errors in there...):
https://planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,24465.msg248542.html#msg248542
;D
There was 10-15 years ago a print guy in the Adobe forums that insisted like you and wrote and wrote and wrote...
Then he deleted all his post (i think) and vanished.
Blah blah blah blah. Classic missdirection.
Simple fact. Pixels do not exist in the real world. Printers use DPI
even if they say PPI for ease of use. Dots don't exist in digital space, as it's a spacial calculation for print. It's actually super simple. PPI is used to calculate the DPI for print.
go look at some printer manuals. Lol
https://castleink.com/blogs/printer-help/inkjet-printer-resolution-dpi-printer-guide
Quote from: undefinedBasically the term DPI refers to the resolution of the printing device, where PPI refers to the resolution of the image itself. How can you remember this? Monitors display pixels, and printers produce dots.
This is why people are confused, and further confused when someone is talking about DPI in Photoshop or elsewhere, when they are
specifically referring to the final printed medium, and the printer using PPI to calculate DPI per that printers capabilities and settings.
And again, this irrelevant arguing is pointless and ridiculous. He must set the Document Resolution to appease the PPI requirement, and subsequently the minimum DPI requirement for a good print. You guys are ridiculous. No matter how you argue it, the printer is using PPI to calculate DPI, as that's how printer resolution works. And he is specifically trying to print with Art Station. I'd honestly give higher PPI images. If that's there only option you should look into far better options out there to provide prints or canvasses. Render as big as possible, or use stitching method gone over here in the past for a final massive image you can use for super detailed prints you can walk right up on.
"You guys are ridiculous"
I have friends who work in those print houses and have worked in prints since 1994 more then ones.
This is the reason i find you amusing in your arrogance Jordan. I don't get even angry at you ;D
What do you think you're even arguing? You've done nothing but throw out links on this forum, which are not citable, and other sources which go over what I've summarized multiple times. I don't even think you have any idea what you're doing and just arguing to argue. Using playschool antics "my dad is better then your dad" friends. Lol None of this means anything, and your friends will probably summarize the same thing I have.
;D
*Sigh* And apologies to N-drju for hijacking your thread.
Long story short, if you use the pixel dimensions that Artstation recommends, you will be fine. And as I mentioned before please let us know how everything works out. There's nothing like a large high-quality print to show off a great image.
I don't want to take this unnecessary longer then needed.
But just for others who might get confused from our debate we had here, this is from Artstation:
"Note: Don't confuse PPI (Pixels Per Inch) with DPI (Dots Per Inch),
which refers to the approximate number of ink droplets the printer heads spray onto the media.
Although the PPI is 300, the printers themselves operate at a much higher DPI (Dots Per Inch) up to 2400x1200dpi
and potentially even higher in the future to achieve amazing quality."
https://help.artstation.com/en/articles/86-image-requirements-for-prints
Amusing discussion, thanks guys ;D
Who would have thought I would cause such a carnage with just a handful of questions? ;D I am a master troll!! ;D
PPI is definitely not a DPI. Even I know it already despite never before having to think about such issues.
Here's some more bad news for you Jordan. This is a screenshot from the Artstation help center itself;
artstscreen.png
Case close I'm afraid... Or is it...? :D
@sboerner - Thank you very much for the Afinity Photo tip! The price is indeed very attractive! Even if used just as a "diagnostic measure", it shall be good value for money. :)
Oh, and by the way - the sizes advertised on the print help page are fixed. Artstation has answered my e-mail. So I need to re-render my images... :(
Quote from: sboerner on September 21, 2020, 07:43:07 PM*Sigh* And apologies to N-drju for hijacking your thread.
That's okay, no offence taken. ;D ;D ;D
QuoteI am a master troll!! ;D
8) 8) 8)
Quote from: N-drju on September 22, 2020, 02:07:40 AMWho would have thought I would cause such a carnage with just a handful of questions? ;D I am a master troll!! ;D
PPI is definitely not a DPI. Even I know it already despite never before having to think about such issues.
Here's some more bad news for you Jordan. This is a screenshot from the Artstation help center itself;
artstscreen.png
Case close I'm afraid... Or is it...? :D
@sboerner - Thank you very much for the Afinity Photo tip! The price is indeed very attractive! Even if used just as a "diagnostic measure", it shall be good value for money. :)
I never said PPI was DPI, it's the equivalent in digital space. PPI is digital. DPI is physical. Even your screenshot from Art Station explains this.
The reason they say this is you can give images a EXIF label of DPI (digital camera can do this). Photoshop doesn't do this. You use document resolution, which tags the image with XResolution and YResolution instead of a ratio for a DPI label which will tell the printer to print at 300 DPI unless manually changed.
However setting your PPI allows printers to calculate the DPI for that image. Notice how they say what I said about printers not being at a 1:1 ratio for DPI anymore (unless a scanner). That's where the calculation comes in.
Again, you set PPI in Resolution which WILL be used by the printer to calculate DPI to print. When you set PPI it's not setting "300" or whatever you punch in in the EXIF data, it sets the documents X and Y PPI resolutions. If you were to give it a DPI label (which photoshop doesn't do) it would set a DPI of 300, which would tell the printer to print at 300, period, cause that's the header label the printer reads. That's why they tell you not to set a DPI for the file. You kinda gotta understand what's actually happening to the file. But if you are familiar with Phothoshop and printing your art, you know PPI is XResolution and YResolution is how DPI is calculated on a printer. Like they noted, and I noted, you can provide files at much higher XResolution and YResolution for better results, and they seem to be wanting to go even further.
There is just fundamental misunderstandings all abound. Lol
FYI the DPI label for image headers is deprecated as far as I know, when you talk about setting the DPI today, it's always referring to setting XResolution and YResolution (Not Width/Height). You could take a 300 PPI image and stamp it with 72 DPI and it would override printer results and ruin the image. This is why it's especially important. However, again, PPI is directly being used to calculate DPI, inherently.
If PPI wasn't being used for DPI calculation like all modern printers do, you can guarantee they wouldn't tell you to up PPI to 300 from 72, which would ruin print. Lol
Well, one thing I know from the two days research is that there is the widespread (alas erroneous) acceptance of the term "DPI" to stand for "pixels per inch". How absurd! This perpetuates the misconception.
Why, even the properties window in operating systems display DPI instead of differentiating between the two. Even Affinity Photo has the "DPI" in resizing options, admitting "it is actually PPI, but we have named it DPI for convenience sake"! No, this is very inconvenient, because I just don't know what to think - if it's really PPI or DPI that I change...
It's ironic that a program as simple as paint.NET (which is basically an "MS Paint wearing makeup") got this right. Still, it doesn't change the fact that an image correctly resized in paint.NET is still displayed as having "300 DPIs" in the Windows Explorer properties window. ::)
The reason the naming convention is interchangeable is because they represent measurements in digital space, and in medium (print). At 1:1 1ppi is 1dpi. But printers have much more dense DPI resolution these days, so it's not 1:1 in pretty much all cases today except scanning, where setting it to 300 DPI will be 1:1 with PPI.
PPI X/Y reoslutions won't effect the actual image being viewed on a computer, just like a DPI label wouldn't, it's EXIF data to be read by readers, such as a printer.