What dpi value in Designer, and for what application?

[Nemesis]

I'm kinda confused now... my local printshop says it's no use to use to go any higher than 300 dpi for printing work (business card for example).
They also told me that web/online applications normally use 72 dpi.

Now I'm wondering;

• Why does Affinity Designer give me the option to create a new document in 400 dpi... what's the use of it?

• And would it be better to keep all my web/online graphics in 72 dpi for now on?

 

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In other words, when should I go for 72, 300 or even 400 dpi??

[Alfred]

For web pages, graphics are displayed at whatever DPI setting your computer uses. In the old days, 100% scaling meant 72dpi on a Mac or 96dpi on a Windows PC, but with modern retina displays and 4K screens all that has changed. If you're going to distinguish at all, you now have to distinguish between CSS pixels and device pixels; however, much the best way forward is to forget all about DPI and simply concentrate on the pixel dimensions of your project.

 

[toltec]

5 hours ago, Prodigy said:

• Why does Affinity Designer give me the option to create a new document in 400 dpi...

 

 

Normal four colour litho printing is done with a LPI (lines per inch) value of 150. For that you really need 300 pixels per inch. i.e. twice as many pixels, to get the right quality

 

Some very high quality litho printing is done at 175 lpi or (very rarely) 200 lpi. This is very hard to do and needs the right paper, the right ink, the right printing machine, the right image and so on. 

 

That is what 400 is about, very high quality Art print type work, but for 99% of printed jobs, 300 is perfect. In case you are wondering. there is no advantage of using 400 dpi for a 150 lpi printing job.

 

In other words, unless you are told different, for printing always use 300 dpi.

 

For web sites, they vary so much with Retina displays (as Alfred says) you need to know the pixel resolution for each image. But never mention inches for websites. They have no use whatsoever. 

 

If anyone quotes inches for images (website), They don't understand.

 

For example, 72 pixels (an inch according to some) is a hell of a lot smaller on a smart phone than on a 50" TV. Although both are likely to be 1920 pixels. Neither one will display 72 pixels at one inch.

[Nemesis]

16 hours ago, toltec said:

That is what 400 is about, very high quality Art print type work, but for 99% of printed jobs, 300 is perfect. In case you are wondering. there is no advantage of using 400 dpi for a 150 lpi printing job.

 

In other words, unless you are told different, for printing always use 300 dpi.

Ok, so if I make my print work in 400 dpi... it's a little overkill since 300 dpi is enough.
But, it wouldn't hurt to make them in 400 dpi I assume?
(since Designer offers that option anyway, I'd rather choose to play safe and go for the max... as long as it doesn't compromise the end result)

• For web solutions, is a higher resolution always better?
Or would it be better to just stick to the size that I want the final product to look?
For instance; if a website recommends me to use 100x100 jpg, but I DO have that particular document available in 200x200... should I make it smaller to fit the 100x100 resolution as recommended, or is it ok to leave it at 200x200?
(and would 200x200 in this case give me better result, or wouldn't it matter, since the website recommended 100x100)

[toltec]

If you use 400 dpi it will make absolutely no difference to quality. The file size will be bigger and it will slow things down a bit, but that's about all. Do so if you wish, it wont improve the quality but it wont hurt it either.

 

Websites are pixel dependent, not resolution dependent. I think that's the right term ?

 

i.e. If your browser is 1024 pixels wide, an image of 512 pixels will fill half the screen. If you make the image 1024 pixels, it wont double the quality, it will double the size. So 1024 pixels will fill the whole screen.

 

In other words, if the website say 100 pixels x 100 pixels, you must make it 100 pixels x 100 pixels, or it wont fit !

[Alfred]

35 minutes ago, toltec said:

In other words, if the website say 100 pixels x 100 pixels, you must make it 100 pixels x 100 pixels, or it wont fit !

 

If you make it 200 pixels by 200 pixels but set its width and height attributes to 100px it will fit just fine, but you'll be wasting everyone's 'bandwidth' by forcing the downloading of four times as many pixels as you need. The smart way to deal with these things is to use CSS media queries to determine the image size to be loaded, but in general you should manage OK without getting involved in such complexities.

 

[Nemesis]

Ah ok... I understand better now.
Coming to the next subject;

For my own company logo, what size do you recommend me?
I need the logo on my website (200x200 would be enough for that), but I also want to have the logo on banners and merchandise in the very near future.
I COULD make it - for example - 200x200 pixels (to stay in range of my website logo), and just enlarge if needed... but I can also do it the other way around, make it BIG (for example 1000x1000 or even bigger) and shrink when needed.
What's the best way to go... shrink when needed or enlarge when needed?
(and what size do you recommend me)

 

- I know Designer works around vectors, but would quality of a 200x200 logo stay the same if (for example) I stretch it to 5000x5000?
Is there a certain maximum limit  after which an enlarged logo loses quality?

[Alfred]

49 minutes ago, Prodigy said:

- I know Designer works around vectors, but would quality of a 200x200 logo stay the same if (for example) I stretch it to 5000x5000?
Is there a certain maximum limit  after which an enlarged logo loses quality?

 

If your logo is pure vector, there's nothing to stretch! You would simply export it at whatever pixel dimensions you need.

 

If there are bitmap/raster elements in the logo, working at the maximum required pixel dimensions will mean that you'll only be discarding pixels for smaller versions (instead of inventing pixels for larger ones).

 

[Nemesis]

I'm not sure what you mean?
I'm only just starting, so this advanced tech terms are out of my league for the moment...

[dutchshader]

Maybe this could help

https://www.reclameshoppen.com/verschil-raster-vector

[Nemesis]

23 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

Maybe this could help

https://www.reclameshoppen.com/verschil-raster-vector

Ok, dank je... dit idee had ik al, maar wist het niet zeker.  

To answer Alfred;
Every used for enlarging my logo is purely made from within Designer.
So I guess there would be no limit on how big I enlarge it, without losing quality??
(whether it's 500x500 or 10.000x10.000)

[sujeesh]

we are a carpet production team using chromo jet machines, in our machine we have to use 76.2 dpi in tiff files. if any body know how to add ?

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, sujeesh said:

we are a carpet production team using chromo jet machines, in our machine we have to use 76.2 dpi in tiff files. if any body know how to add ?

You can give a try to enter this 72,2 with decimals as documents resolution.

I just tried for image resolution, where typed DPI affects the image size, displayed as absolute number with decimals in the Transform Panel. Though Affinity does not report itself non-integer numbers as fractions or decimals for the units DPI and %, it seems to handle + calculate them if they are manually typed values:

1.) Integer number typed in the image's DPI field:

2.) Decimal typed + enter-key (green) does cause a changed size (yellow).
Note: for the screenshot I retyped the decimal once more, the field itself does not report decimals but calculates with them.

 

EDIT (Supplement): Unfortunately I seem to be unable to get dpi decimals used for export . Though the Acrobat object inspector shows both size and resolution quite detailed (DPI per mm and with 3 decimals) my two tests, exported with 76 dpi versus 76,2 dpi, resulted in the same output size and DPI according to this Acrobat info.