neron15210

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Posts posted by neron15210

  6. Posted

    I would not suggest something like that in public, because they can change the rules.  

    Also $10 will not break the bank so no reason to .....

    I remember, like 2 years ago 3M would send a sample roll to you, all we have to do is fill out the form, no calls or anything, but then people start to brag how many rolls they get and 3M put stop to it.

    Now they call  before they send anything out.

    So, best deal is keeping it close to vest .

    My 2 cents

  22. Posted

    Sometimes the issue of "size" can be confusing, even to a seasoned graphic designer. First let me just say that DPI and PPI are different. DPI is Dots Per Inch and usually is a printer term, referring to how many dots of ink are being laid down horizontally and vertically in a square inch. This generally needs to be fairly high to get maximum coverage and to avoid actually seeing the individual dots. PPI is pixels per inch and often times graphic designers call this DPI for some reason. I suppose it is fine if you want to call your digital file's resolution DPI, but when you cross over into the print world it can get confusing (since they are two different things). PPI is your Pixels Per Inch, and this refers to your digital raster file's resolution.

    If you think about it, this makes sense in a more simplistic way. (The following example isn't technically accurate for a couple of small reasons, but it will due to explain the core logic.) Say I have a file that is 1 pixel in size. That pixel is the color orange. Now I want to print it. If the PPI and the DPI were the same, how am I going to print this orange color? I need multiple dots of ink from the printer, not just one. I need both Magenta and Yellow, to create the orange color. In fact I might need more than just one of each, because there are different tones of orange. So it would make sense that generally, the DPI of a printer should be higher than the PPI of your file. This isn't always the case, but you get the picture I'm trying to paint here.

    So you've got size (the real world dimensions) and you've got resolution (pixels per inch) of your file. We try to design anywhere from 72ppi - 150ppi when creating a file for print. It would be quite a task to even locate a raster graphic/photo that is (in its original raw format) at a greater resolution that 150ppi at the types of sizes used in wide format print. Again, some people are confused because they think: "Well my printer can PRINT in 720 DPI, so shouldn't I design my files in that?" No! Your computer would have a fit, even with 4 or more GB of RAM. At these banner sizes anyway. :)

    So often times we'll tell someone who is getting a banner and is doing the design themselves: "Please just design to actual size at 150ppi". That means if they are ordering a 16'x2' banner (72ppi would probably be enough, but we'll use 150 since it's a rounder number) they would setup the document to be: 192 inches wide by 24 inches tall at 150 pixels per inch. Now sometimes people will design in... say... half the size but double the resolution. IE: 96 inches wide by 12 inches tall at 300 PPI. I have no idea why people do this. Technically, the file is the EXACT SAME SIZE. If you look at the actual pixels in the file, in both cases the file would be 28800 pixels wide by 3600 pixels high. So the digital data there, the quality of the file, is precisely the same. Often times people try and do this... half the size, quarter the size, or some other fraction, and then try to make up the difference by cranking up the "resolution". I'm not sure these people understand that fundamentally they aren't changing anything. (I think there's something in their mind about making that "resolution" number go up farther and thinking their print quality will increase.) So why not save yourself the trouble and set it to the actual dimensions. This might help a lot more down the road, when you're trying to figure out an exact position for a logo that needs to be so many inches away from the edge, or when a client asks you to change the text to be at least a foot high. Man it is so much easier to do these sorts of things when you're looking at a document with rulers that are showing actual inches so you don't have to do some sort of crazy conversion in your head.

    So we try and design in 150ppi, but once the banners get larger (10 feet or longer) we usually switch over to 72ppi. There are two reasons for this. 1) Once your files get that large, at 150ppi it starts to really take a toll on your computer system resources. 2) Banners that are that big are usually not hung somewhere where people will be getting really close to them, so the resolution doesn't need to be quite so sharp. You'd be suprised how clearly 72ppi prints out anyway.

    Now, we