To what extent, (image on screen vs. image on print), is what you see what you get?

[Amy Choue]

24 minutes ago, dominik said:

if the one looks completely wrong it will be the same with the other company.

yes, that was what I was thinking too. If the results from the print shop are just excellent, what a load I will get off of me. If they are not, if they are horribly pixellated, then... (sigh). 

I actually thought of, some weeks ago, practicing Photo at least 30 minutes a day. And, I couldn't do this. Photo is difficult and so much of it (in the two "For Beginners" and "Beyond the Basics" courses) at first seems pointless. At the very beginning, I kept thinking "Well that photo is good or better as is. Why change the color saturation, luminosity, etc.?" I now see them differently and began understanding how everything connects with everything else, but practice is hard. Interesting and hard. 

[Washishu]

On 9/10/2023 at 11:43 AM, Amy Choue said:

If there is going to be a great degree of difference between them, how is design possible? 

An approximate workflow for the graphic artist/typographer, pre digital imaging.

1. Read the client’s brief carefully. If no brief is given, write it yourself and get it approved by the client before you put pencil to paper.
2. In your layout pad draft out about two hundred thumbnail sketches. Circle those that you believe best satisfy the brief (and your design sense).
3. Still in your layout pad, prepare full-size visuals with marker pens. Text matter can be indicated as parallel lines to the x-height of the type-size but type above 24pt (approx) should be lettered out, using your knowledge of type face characteristics. Where you are using a decorative face you may wish to letter this out using a type specimen sheet.
4. From these rough visuals, select the one that works best and prepare a client presentation visual. Depending upon various factors this may include pasted-in photos, adhesive dummy body text, transfer lettering.
5. Submit the presentation visual to the client and grit your teeth when you are told that they didn’t understand that that was what you meant when you said…
6. Prepare a second presentation visual and consider a career change.
7. Mount photographs with tracing paper overlay showing finished size with % enlargement/reduction and prepare a technical specification for the typesetter/printer.

I don’t think I’ve missed anything.

[v_kyr]

6 hours ago, Amy Choue said:

Reading about Mac vs. PC and "WYSWYG," I for a moment seriously wanted to have a Mac. To not want a Mac, that is good to know! 

Well there's a difference between hardware & OS wise wanting and really needing here. - So don't get me wrong on this, Macs are pretty cool and good for all sort of computing and of course including graphics design based computing either way, but honestly you don't need explicitely a Mac in order to do such things, as you can do such things equally with a Win PC too, as far as the respective software is available in both worlds.

 

[v_kyr]

7 hours ago, Amy Choue said:

I'll have to use the one with higher resolution. 

Yes, as you want to make something for print out and not for an on screen website etc. it's essential to have and use higher resolution images here, so they can be printed out well quality wise on paper ...

 

For web based specific image search, beside using Wikipedia and the like, using and searching (recherching) via Google Image after similar available images is often handy. - For example I found somewhere this similar image here on the net via the Google image service ...

... but saw that this one is also often sold by some picture service sites, thus you have to check (look) after possible copyrights and commercial usage rights etc. for that one before reusing it in a printed etc. publication!

[thomaso]

7 hours ago, Amy Choue said:

realizing that 1 hour-long tutorial demands at least 100 hours-long practice. It's really about a lot of practice, a lot of experience,

44 minutes ago, Amy Choue said:

I now see them differently and began understanding how everything connects with everything else, but practice is hard. Interesting and hard. 

Just consider that you are learning and experiencing knowledge that 1-2 generations ago was spread across multiple, separate professions: photographer | layouter/designer | typesetter | lithographer | printer. The fact that with DTP not only the design possibilities have increased, but also the number of possible workflows to achieve a specific look can make it more complicated – apart from the technical simplicity with pressing buttons, activating checkboxes and moving sliders in a WYSIWYG interface.

Additionally and accordingly your own experience and judgement is fundamentally and can not be replaced by simplified / generalising recommendations like "don't use JPG but TIF only" | "the resolution is insufficient" | "be careful with the neighbourhood printer" | "use CMYK not RGB" (or vice versa) | "avoid …" etc.

It helps to know the possible range of minimum / maximum quality and thus it helps to create unwanted results, too, to finally be able to make decisions and use workflows that satisfy your individual needs, being aware that others might have different ideas of "the right" or "best" workflow and different expectations of a final print result – and all this either fully regardless of and/or inseparably connected with different design preferences and taste.

On the subject of JPG quality / compression / file size, you might be interested in this comparison of a large range of test files and save time on your own tests: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality

For upsampling images in APhoto you also might try – alternatively to "Resize Document" – the two options (HQX | XBR) in menu "Document" > "Resize Pixel Art Document …". While the visible result of upsampling generally depends on the image content, so a line art drawing may show more difference than a 'blurry' image content like e.g. a cloudy sky.

Apart from APhoto and online tools (as mentioned in your linked tutorial) there is also various separate software that does upsampling in a more detailed way than APhoto. For instance Topaz "Gigapixel AI" ( https://www.topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai ) with a bunch of a.) separate methods to choose from and b.) various parameters to set.