Digitizing Illustrations for Publication?

[shamrock838]

Digitizing Illustrations For Publication?:

As a writer/photographer of nonfiction magazine articles, I often include illustrations with submissions. In pre-digital days, these were color 35mm’s or b/w 8x10 glossy prints.

With digital now the way to go, which electronic format is best for illustrations submitted for publication … JPG, PDF, TIF? How do these translate to minimal dpi, pixels, etc … and what do these terms really mean?

Lastly, should writer/photographers now digitize existing b/w prints and negatives?

Thanks.

[MJPhotos24]

PDF is too limiting, TIF is too large, JPG usually works for images, PNG for graphics I hear.

Personally, I believe everything should be digitized as I'm doing with old negatives so they're on my site and archived, searchable for possible sale as sitting in a box is not doing any good.

[Helena]

I work as an artist/illustrator and PNG is the format I use. It supports transparent backgrounds.

My artwork is in raster format though, and some want vector format for publications.

[shamrock838]

I work as an artist/illustrator and PNG is the format I use. It supports transparent backgrounds.

My artwork is in raster format though, and some want vector format for publications.

Helena,

I know nothing of PNG. What is it ... how does it work ... etc.

Thanks

[PhotosGuy]

Best practice is to ask the editor what he needs.

[RDKirk]

"Ask the publication" is the correct answer.

With digital now the way to go, which electronic format is best for illustrations submitted for publication … JPG, PDF, TIF? How do these translate to minimal dpi, pixels, etc … and what do these terms really mean

With regard to photographs, regardless of the image format, what the publication will probably want is an image analogous to the formerly ubiquitous 8x10 print. That is: 300 ppi @ 8x10 or 9x12 in whichever format they designated. This suffices whether they're printing a 5x3 corner page ad or a billboard, presuming the image actually is inherently sharp to begin with.

The image dimensions do not say anything about the inherent sharpness or quantity of detail of the image. It will still have to be as inherently sharp and contain as much detail as the old 8x10 glossy would have required for the purpose. Three hundred ppi @ 8x10 or 9x12 merely ensures that the digital structure of the image will not interfere with the printing process...the printed image will not show the pixels.

They may give you a requirement based on the quantity of megabytes, like, "We want at least 100 megabytes." That means they don't really know what they're talking about. First make sure the inherent sharpness of the image is adequate (excessive cropping, for instance, will reduce the inherent sharpness of a digital image just as it would a film image). Then interpolate (raise the ppi in Photoshop) as necessary to give them all the excess quantity of megabytes they think they want.