HOW TO IMPRESS YOUR
VETERINARY PROFESSORS
BY PRODUCING THE HIGHEST QUALITY PRINTED PICTURE
Dr Sing
Kong Yuen, BVMS (Glasgow), MRCVS
Case written: Oct 18, 2008.
Updated: Apr 16, 2009
"Your digital image is very poor quality," a
magazine printer complained that I gave her low
quality images for printing in her magazine. "The
picture will appear unattractive."
For the past 5 years, I have had read at least 1,000
copies of Digital Photography magazines borrowed
from the library, but I did not need to send any
images to any magazines for printing and so was none
the wiser when it came to printing pictures in
magazines. Hands-on solution to problems are useful
but time-consuming.
I share my recent learning experience so that my
readers do not need to spend time researching the
internet on for how to send in a highest quality
image for printing in a magazine.
1. Resolution
Image resolution is the number of pixels shown
per unit of printed length in an image. For example,
pixels per inch (ppi) refer to computer screen
images and dots per inch (dpi) is used in printing
as printers print dots. Briefly, the higher the
number of pixels, the better the quality of the
image during printing.
For example, a 3,000-dpi image is of a much higher
quality than a 72-dpi image when both are printed
in a magazine or book. However, the computer screen
(monitor) can only display a certain amount of pixel
information. Therefore uploading a 3,000-dpi image
to your webpage will make no difference as it
will look exactly the same as a 72-dpi image.
2. Pixels
Briefly, an image has small blocks (known as
dots) of colour. The closer the dots are packed
together, the better the quality of the image.
3. This is how I produce a highest quality
image for printing in a magazine using Adobe
Photoshop 6.0.
3.1 Choose Image>Image Size. (In Adobe
CS2, press Command-Option-I) or in the PC:
Control_Alt_I)
The following was seen in Adobe Photoshop 6.0.
|
Image Size |
|
Pixel Dimensions:
28.9M |
| Width |
3888
pixels |
|
Height |
2592
pixels |
| |
|
|
Document Size: |
| Width |
54
inches |
|
Height |
36
inches |
| 72 |
pixels per inch |
| |
|
| (
+ ) |
Constraint Proportions |
|
( + ) |
Resample Image |
3.2 What I did so that my Pixel Dimensions remain as
28.9M was to uncheck ( ) Resample
Image and the following is shown below.
|
Image Size |
|
Pixel Dimensions:
28.9M |
| Width |
3888
pixels |
|
Height |
2592
pixels |
| |
|
|
Document Size: |
| Width |
54
inches |
|
Height |
36
inches |
| 72 |
pixels per inch |
| |
|
| (
+ ) |
Constraint Proportions |
|
(
) |
Resample Image |
3.3 For the magazine, the printer is given an
advert with a 4-inch width. Therefore, I
change the Document Size - Width to 4 inches
as you can see from the following:
|
Image Size |
|
Pixel Dimensions:
28.9M |
| Width |
3888
pixels |
|
Height |
2592
pixels |
| |
|
|
Document Size: |
| Width |
4
inches |
|
Height |
2.667
inches |
| 972 |
pixels per inch |
| |
|
| (
+ ) |
Constraint Proportions |
| (
) |
Resample Image |
Note that the Pixel Dimensions remain as 28.9 M. I
saved the image in the thumb-drive and gave it to
the printer. She was pleased that I sent her a
highest quality image. It was 972 pixels per inch (ppi).
Most professional printers like the Straits Times
want at least 300 ppi.
I
hope this article will help some of you to
understand how to do-it-yourself to produce a
highest quality picture for magazine and book
printers so that your readers or professors (as a
veterinary student) will be able to appreciate your
pictures. Professors will definitely be impressed by
your high quality pictures as your classmates will
usually just submit the lower resolution ones as
they need time to go drinking and partying (common
practice in several Australian and American
undergraduates)
You don't need to waste precious time researching
and reading on the technical aspects of digital
imaging. Just follow above steps if you use Adobe
Photoshop.
ANOTHER TIP
The digital camera usually produces an image in
.jpg. You need to save this image as .tiff so that
the quality of the image will not deteriorate while
you continue downloading, uploading, editing during
the production of your image. .jpg files lose quality as
you continue editing them.
I sent my final
picture as a .tiff file for printing by the magazine
publisher. For publication on the Toa Payoh Vets
webpage, I save it as a .jpg as the internet does
not accept .tiff images for the webpage.
I hope readers understand what I mean. It takes
a lot of time reading digital photography magazines
to understand and so the short-cuts I mention here
may be confusing. You just need to follow the steps
if you have no inclination to research on digital
imaging! The publisher of the magazine was impressed
with the high quality picture I gave her and said so
accordingly. I learnt something due to a
necessity to better myself in digital photography.
There is just too much to master in this fascinating
subject but there is not much time to do it. First
impressions count, therefore get your pictures
printed out with the highest quality for your
professor to give you higher marks in your project
work!
TOA
PAYOH VETS
