72 dpi or 96 dpi - What's best for web images?

[Steve Hubbartt]

When exporting Xara work to jpegs I have been specifying 96 dots per inch (dpi). I have since read that 72 dpi is the optimum resolution for web pages images.?

Does anyone have a view on this..?

Thanks, Steve

[gidgit]

yea,Risto is correct here... just stick to pixels, for images, as well for text.... all will see the same no matter the platform... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[RTK]

Hello Steve,

A web browser does not care about dpi - it doesn't matter if an image is 72, 96, 150 or 890 dpi... The only thing that matters for web images is the pixel dimensions e.g. 500 pixels by 300 pixels.

That 72 or 96 dpi was probably come up as a guideline for people who have no idea about pixels.

Good luck.

[Steve Hubbartt]

Thanks All

Here's the site/page that started it off..
http://www.susqu.edu/webcentral/perftips.cfm

Check out the statement under 'Pixel Resolution' - Does it make sense to you guys??

Steve

[Bird]

Thanks. So I guess then it doesn't matter.

Saz, when you scale down an image in the Flash Export Dialog box, are you essentially doing the same thing as you are when you scale it down in Photoshop or similar program? Aside from the ability to apply image manipulations in Photoshop, is the act of scaling or resizing the same, producing the same quality theoretically, between the two methods?

I drew my comic strips in Flash twice as big as needed. Would it be better to draw them exactly the size I want them to display, so I don't have to scale them down when I export? Or is there no difference in image quality?

I think there's no difference but just wanted to get an expert opinion.

Thanks.

[Saz]

They're not the same - one is 72ppi, the other is 300ppi. Unfortunately, unless you can open them in Photoshop or another photo-editor of a similar calibre, you won't be able to see that.

[Bird]

By the way, I have noticed a very slight improvement in image quality when using a higher GIF color depth. Even when I have only used 15 or so colors in a comic, lines seem to look smoother at 256 colors than at 16 or 32. But maybe I'm imagining the difference.

[John Rayner]

Hi WR1000,

Welcome to Talkgraphics! On the web size matters, the smaller the size, the faster the picture loads. there is only one type of picture that anybody on the net will wait for, and the quality is not that important there either.

So... the lower the dots per inch you can make the picture and still have it presentable, the better. I use 96 DPI for web work. Drop the colors down to the minimum in gif, and set the quality to 70% in jpg. The quality is fine for the web, and the size is workable.

[Peter Eisenburger]

I was wondering about this topic for many years. I always set my web graphics on 72 dpi. Some time ago there was an extensive article on photo.net proving the dpi feature is literally meaningless. Pages over pages, many photos, documents and screen shots. Don't have the link anymore. But I found this instructive article:
http://www.photo.net/learn/resize/

Note that the ppi/dpi-feature can be important for prints.

[Saz]

Originally posted by Egg Bramhill:
I've been to sites where the creator has put a 1200 dpi image on a web page and just resized it
inside their web editor to fit a page. This doesn't reduce the file size, just the size (and quality) of the image. But what your trying to say has nothing to do with what we're discussing
Egg

You edited your post while I was replying. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I don't get you. What are we discussing then?