Page size/image size/print size?

[Owen]

I have some line art images that are going to be used in a book. The publishers have asked me to suppy them at the size they are to be printed, and at 1200dpi.

The page size is 9 x 6 inches, the images will be about 3 x 4.5in on the pages. I have page size set in Xara and images drawn, but when I check print size (in PS) images reduce in size from that drawn in Xara (export drawing). What's up?

Can someone kindly help me ensure that what I see on-screen and export at 1200dpi will print at required size.

I assume this has nothing to do with screen dpi, otherwise I would be doing some homework instead of asking such a basic question. Sorry if I got that wrong!

Much thanks,
Owen.

[stratocast]

Photoshop's View> Print Size command is virtually useless. It's supposed to display an image at the actual print size. However, it can't do that because it doesn't know the resolution to which your monitor is set i.e. 800x600, 1024x768 etc.

If you open an image, choose the print size command and display rulers, then hold a physical ruler up to the screen, you can see how Photoshop's idea of an inch differs from the real-world measurement.

Hope this helps.

[gwpriester]

1200 DPI would be appropriate for exporting text in TIFF format. For images, you should be fine with 300-600 dpi.

If the publisher is printing at approximately 133 Lines Per Inch then twice that amount in dpi is sufficient or 266 dpi.

The problem with Photoshop is Adobe is Mac-centric and so they assume all screen resolutions are 72dpi. Windows displays at 96 dpi and this is why you are having problems.

In Xara, if you work at 100% Zoom you are woking at 1:1.

If your line art is vector and not scanned, you would be better off giving the publisher EPS or PDF files as these are resolution independent and will print the sharpest at any size.

If you need more help or have more questions, let us know. That's why we're here

Gary

[stratocast]

Here's an excellent article about Photoshop's Print Size command and how you can get around it's limitations.
http://www.digitalmastery.com/downlo...s/psuser51.pdf

As Gary says, 100% in Xtreme is 1:1.

[gwpriester]

Another suggestion. Just print the image from Xara. That will give you a perfect idea of how it will look.

Gary

[Owen]

Thanks all for the information. I didn't know about the adobe issue. And thanks to Stratocast for the pdf link. My printer is kaput so I couldn't check size myself.

The line art is various maps and graphs and contains text and shapes/lines. I'm going to send as Tiff, Jpg, and pdf images. Most image content is black on white, a few have some grey shapes. Using 1 bit the text isn't crisp, ok at 4 bit.

Book type is 'New Baskerville' and 'Frutiger', commercial fonts which I don't have, so I plan to convert my similar fonts to shapes. It's my first submission to print, and for a friend, so I hope I get things right.

Thanks again for advice and info!