why do 72 ppi images look good on a display but bad in a print?

mcluckie wrote in post #9540583
I'm NOT a printer, but I buy $100,000 of it a year for clients. I used to spend $50,000 a year in film, so we bought our own imagesetter. Look at portfolios.

Oh, and I teach DESIGN at a university, have a MS degree in design and a BS degree in photo from the Institute of Design, and do consulting on 3 continents. My clients are all Fortune 500 companies.

lol, no comment. Don't want to start flaming.

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Right; if I mistyped in my haste, I certainly meant PPI. For example, a relatively standard web window to design for is 600x800 PPI. dots are indeed printed, pixel are indeed screen.

I agree, but I was talkng about prepping an image for use on the web in photoshop.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #9540608
Yeah, I agree.. web is all about pixels, however when you open a new photoshop file, you have to choose an image size setting, which normally is 72 pixels per inch.

I do disagree with your statement about designing though. Ever web designer that works for anyone commercially, uses Photoshop to design in. They don't use Illustrator or InDesign. In fact, we laugh at those who do, because they are generally wannabe web designers who are crossing over from print design.

The only other acceptable industry standard for web design is Fireworks (which I've tried to use since Macromedia days, but just hate it). Layered Photoshop files are THE standard.

And, personally, I wouldn't put much stock in web designer trained solely by school. Schooling means absolutely jack squat when I hire web designers and developers. They either learn the stuff on their own and are committed to learning forever, on their own... or they are a paper-toting youngin that thinks they know everything about the web. They're usually pretty easy to spot and I generally show them the door quite quickly.

Bruce Mau has big clients yes? Bruce Mau does web yes? Bruce Mau hires school trained
designers yes? There you have the answer.

Only small "web design firms" hire the real wannabes, those who use are "self-taught".

Designers who are trained in design are on a whole different level than some Joe who taught
himself through web design from dummies :/ Sorry no credibility.

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I bet you use Arial.

DAMphyne wrote in post #9540612
Well, according to the advertisements, My printer has smaller drops than most other printers.
How does that fit?

Well I'm sorry to hear that,. Actually I'm referring more to commercial presses but I would think it would be the same with personal printers. The smaller drops I wouldn't think we be apparent to the naked eye but on an overall printout I guess it would give you more detail. But overall dpi is the same size dots, just the higher the number of dots the less space you have between them, which is why on newsprint if you go over 200dpi the dots will get so close together you have the chance of them bleeding into each other.

mcluckie wrote in post #9540644
.
Right; if I mistyped in my haste, I certainly meant PPI. For example, a relatively standard web window to design for is 600x800 PPI. dots are indeed printed, pixel are indeed screen.


I agree, but I was talkng about prepping an image for use on the web in photoshop.

I'm sitting in a real newsroom, we use and say dpi.
Design school also use and say dpi.

I think we're on the same page here.

dugcross wrote in post #9537173
I will agree with you that a 5x7 100% view of the image printed out at 5x7 will not print out as good if you're looking at a 72ppi image on the screen.

So which will look better when viewed closer up? A 80"x120" print or a 80"x120" LCD having used the same image for each? The LCD of course! LCDs are just too expensive these days for permanent image display in large sizes.

HappySnapper90 wrote in post #9540864
So which will look better when viewed closer up? A 80"x120" print or a 80"x120" LCD having used the same image for each? The LCD of course! LCDs are just too expensive these days for permanent image display in large sizes.

Actually it depends on what you print it on. I've seen some metallic prints that look awesome. Funny that you say that though, my monitor went out and until I can get it fixed I'm using my 58" HDTV for my monitor!

mcluckie wrote in post #9540463
Ask ANY web designer (not the psuedos here) and he'll tell you that sites are done for a 72 ppi screen. OF COURSE you can set the res at whatever you want on your monitor. 72 ppi is the STANDARD, this century and last. Do you really know a web deigner that designs for an 88 ppi display?

Hang on, I'll ask her (I happen to have one sitting next to me). Nope, she never designs a web site for any value of dpi. Thats' because there is no 'standard'. Web sites are designed to fit either a percentage of the screen size or designed to a particular number of pixels.

As an example, take the PotN logo that you can see at the top of this page. How many dpi is that set to? The answer is - it isn't! There is no dpi value assigned to that image. I would suggest that it's be really difficult to find any web graphic that does have a dpi value assigned to it. The image is 385x49 pixels and (assuming you've not changed the magnification on your browser) it will display as 385x49 pixels on any screen.

If you don't believe me then check outthis pagefrom Wayne Fulton (who makes a living from knowing about things like this).

dugcross wrote in post #9540914
Actually it depends on what you print it on. I've seen some metallic prints that look awesome. Funny that you say that though, my monitor went out and until I can get it fixed I'm using my 58" HDTV for my monitor!

I can never get my screen to look good on my TV, tried it yesterday, it just looks...
not as good, even though if I were to play a movie via the computer, it looks much better
than on a monitor. Guess it has something to do with dpi, but more so with color
and contrast or something along those lines. Sometimes my indesign column guides
(pinkish) turns black, its funky.

mcluckie wrote in post #9540644
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Right; if I mistyped in my haste, I certainly meant PPI. For example, a relatively standard web window to design for is 600x800 PPI

Oh dear, your understanding of this really is poor, isn't it? One doesn't design for a 600x800 ppi window. One designs for a 600x800 pixel window. Pixels per inch is meaningless in web design.

hollis_f wrote in post #9540981
If you don't believe me then check outthis pagefrom Wayne Fulton (who makes a living from knowing about things like this).

I read that article a while back. Good article.

channel_49 wrote in post #9540996
I can never get my screen to look good on my TV, tried it yesterday, it just looks...
not as good, even though if I were to play a movie via the computer, it looks much better
than on a monitor. Guess it has something to do with dpi, but more so with color
and contrast or something along those lines. Sometimes my indesign column guides
(pinkish) turns black, its funky.

Not sure myself but I was amazed how good my tv looks using it as a monitor.

channel_49 wrote in post #9540648
Bruce Mau has big clients yes? Bruce Mau does web yes? Bruce Mau hires school trained
designers yes? There you have the answer.

Only small "web design firms" hire the real wannabes, those who use are "self-taught".

Designers who are trained in design are on a whole different level than some Joe who taught
himself through web design from dummies :/ Sorry no credibility.

---

I bet you use Arial.

LOL. okay. I think I'm done with you now. You're obviously the best in the world and I am but a peon. I don't know anything and I'm obviously only small time (My current client is Texas Instruments, ever heard of em?)

You've been quite agitated in this entire thread and your posts are certainly inflammatory. So, are you a professional in the web field? What is it that you do and for whom? I see you can quote others and throw around names, but do you know any of em? Have you spoken at any web conferences or even been to one? You know anyone that's truly a web visionary? Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Myer, Jason Santa Maria, Dan Cederholm, Shaun Inman?

Sorry, I think you have no credibility - you sound like a print designer who is desperately trying to sound like you know anything about the web.

PS, welcome to my block list, btw.

As simply as possible: Images are made up of dots or "pixels". A monitor, whether you consider it to have an actual "resolution" or not, displays about 72 to 100 dots for every inch of monitor size. If an image measures 1000 pixels (or dots) by 600 pixels, it will display on a 100 dpi (dot per inch) monitor as being about 10 inches by 6 inches.

Printers generally print at much higher resolutions (200 to 720 dpi). That same 1000 X 600 image printed at 300 dpi (a common setting) is only 3 1/3 inches X 2 inches.

To print to a larger size, each pixel must be printed much larger or much farther apart, or intermediate pixels must be interpolated. In any case, the apparent image quality drops way off.

To print an image ten by six inches at 300 dpi with no interpolation would require an original image 3000 X 1800 pixels.

This is all a gross simplification, but I think it gets the concept across.

Annie Social wrote in post #9574489
As simply as possible: Images are made up of dots or "pixels". A monitor, whether you consider it to have an actual "resolution" or not, displays about 72 to 100 dots for every inch of monitor size. If an image measures 1000 pixels (or dots) by 600 pixels, it will display on a 100 dpi (dot per inch) monitor as being about 10 inches by 6 inches.

And the size of the images in inches is determined solely by the resolution of the monitor. The 'dpi' setting of the image being displayed has absolutely zero effect on the size of the image.