What's a good print-friendly setting to use?

[sanagi]

Hi all. I plan to paint something then print it on an A3 size paper, but recently, my previous work grew as big as an A3 size (its like 3XXX x 5XXX pixels i think? and at least 400 dpi as a friend suggested.) and things naturally got too bogged down to work on. I want to avoid something as catastrophic on my next work. Whats a good way to work on A3 that can be printed without bogging down my cpu? I heard of working at 100dpi first then saving it as 300 or more when finished... but does this actually work?!

[Elsevilla]

Thats easy depend on the printable size, when you start a new drawing, change pixels to inches an follow this rule.

internet images has 72 pixels, some printers has 300 pixels and some of them got even 400 dpis.


so lets say you want to print a size of 10 x 6 inches on paper, then you just type those sizes and add the printer resolution, so when you create the canvas, its automatically turned in the exact pixels you need.

like 10 inches for a 300 resolution will be 3000 pixels.

then try a drawing for a web for 10 x 6 inches but in 72 resolution and create the file canvas, and you will notice the sizes of amount of pixels changes automatically to less than the printed version.



So when a pplying this you will get a kindof rule to measure real sizes, then just copy the image you want inside this size, or even better, start with the correct size.


For comics some people double the printed size, or 1.5x times, thats why most of them work files in a3 size, its the double of the printed version for more quality, i never work bigger than a a3(10 x 15 inches) 300 dpis size.


but that depends on you.

[K-san]

In school we were taught a general rule of 300 dpi unless otherwise specified by a client. I have never heard of upscaling a dpi aftere done, and it doesn't sound like it would work, although maybe someone can prove me wrong.

I have been able to work fairly large at this dpi, up to 17 in (51000 pxls? is my quick math terrible?) for certain projects. A3 is what.....11 something x 16 something inches? I don't remember...

The other issue is how many layers? Do you have numerous layer masks/ effect going on. This can all cause some serious chugging. Keep a reign on what you are doing, layer management can make all the difference. I only make this point because I had a friend who got totally bogged down-only to discover he actually had 100 layers(that was a PS file however)...enciting a "WTF do you need that many layers for" from me.

I also had an issue in school with not enough RAM(that was years ago mind you). I had to print everything in my upper classes, and my old computer just could not handle it.

Whatever your deal is, I hope you find your solution. I think printing in itself is a science :^^:

[ikken]

Hi all. I plan to paint something then print it on an A3 size paper, but recently, my previous work grew as big as an A3 size (its like 3XXX x 5XXX pixels i think? and at least 400 dpi as a friend suggested.) and things naturally got too bogged down to work on. I want to avoid something as catastrophic on my next work. Whats a good way to work on A3 that can be printed without bogging down my cpu? I heard of working at 100dpi first then saving it as 300 or more when finished... but does this actually work?!

you can work at 72/100/150 dpi to establish composition and stuff, and later merge layers and upscale to 300/600 dpi and paint in the details so your image looked crispy and stuff when printed
simply upscaling your image will most likely result in blurry outcome, but it also depends...

[Baron Impossible]

First, 400dpi is way too high unless it includes very clean lines and / or text, and for some comic work. For general poster work 150dpi is perfectly OK, and 100dpi is often acceptable. For table-top art book quality then 300dpi is what you need.

Second, you need to read up on what DPI means. Increasing DPI on its own will only make your image print smaller, which is obviously not what you want.

Increasing the pixel dimensions and the DPI proportionally will maintain your print size but blur your image. Therefore every time you do this you must repaint your details. There's no way around that.

And to clarify, upsizing is NOT simply increasing DPI. It is increasing DPI and image dimensions in proportion. Most software has a checkbox that links the two and this confuses many people into thinking they are somehow the same. They're not, they are separate values that do separate things.

It doesn't actually mean anything to say that you work at 100dpi, or 300dpi, or whatever, unless you are talking of printing at a specified physical size. The DPI value only affects printing. If you don't intend to print then the physical dimensions (inches) and DPI have no meaning. An image of 2000 x 1500 px is exactly the same whether it's at 1dpi or 100000dpi.

[sanagi]

Thanks for the feedback guys!

Well, i'll be specific, my goal is to create an A3 size artwork thats printable, nothing more or less. My concern is primarily the file to be able to print in A3 size when needed. I suppose if I had those settings, there won't be any issues when printing on something smaller like A4 or such, am I right? Seems like the common consensus of everyone I've talked to.

So after reading the posts, I made a template with the following inputs:
inches
11.693 x 16.537 x 300

pixels
3508 x 4961 x 300

Will these do for my intended output? I used Elsevilla's computation (inch times dpi = pixel dimension) and other write ups also said the same thing. It seemed so simple I can't help feeling that I'm missing something ...

Oh and as of my work bogging down, I checked my layers as K-san suggested: I got 8 layers and a canvass. One sketch layer, another sketch, one more sketch added just recently, 2 clean-up layer, 2 head reference for measuring height, and a paint layer. Sorry guys, it's no uber-meister class art with psychedelic inducing earth shattering titan slaying SFX layers. Just sloppy, terribly sloppy work :p I tried dropping all and it did felt less sluggish, but my safety net is gone :( working on C2D 2ghz and 2gb ram lappy with HDD running dry and most importantly, powered by Vi$t@ *gagchoke*... but i hella hope its got enough resource for my next attempt to work on A3 files.

[Baron Impossible]

So after reading the posts, I made a template with the following inputs:
inches
11.693 x 16.537 x 300

pixels
3508 x 4961 x 300

Will these do for my intended output? I used Elsevilla's computation (inch times dpi = pixel dimension) and other write ups also said the same thing. It seemed so simple I can't help feeling that I'm missing something ...

Yep, that's it. Where people get confused is when the s/w helpfully (or not) links pixel size and DPI and they forget that DPI is just for printing, and also because DPI is sometimes used (correctly or incorrectly) to mean other things, such as the dots per inch on a monitor or the ink dots per inch on a printer (one pixels = several ink dots). In reality what we refer to as DPI should really be PPI (pixels per inch) but because everyone, including art directors and publishers always refer to DPI as being digital pixels per printed inch then that's what we have to take it to mean.