JPEG ruined my printings!

[Buttman]

After I do all the rendings and into JPEG files, after that I printed it all out but turns out to be all blurrey and not clear at all! Looking at my render pics on my pc, looks crystal clear! Which files such as TIF, BMP, etc gives good output pics on printings? Please help.

[IC]

A JPEG is a compressed file, so using TARGA or TIFF is much better.

PNG is also a useful format.

 

Saying that, JPEGs are normally ok unless they're reduced in quality again.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

what is the pixel dimension of your print? ...and what is the physical dimension you printed at?

 

you ned a min. of 150 pixels per inch when you print, otherwise your image will be blurry regardless of what format it is.

 

also, you need to use a decent printer, and high quality paper.

 

jpeg is a compression format, but on a day to day basis, for what we do, usually works fine. if you use jpeg use no less than a 10 on compression. several people swear by tiffs, tga, or some other lossless compression format, which is fine.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

A JPEG is a compressed file, so using TARGA or TIFF is much better.

PNG is also a useful format.

 

Saying that, JPEGs are normally ok unless they're reduced in quality again.

 

Iain beat me to it. Try a tiff, and see if that helps, if not, look at the resolution of your file.

[STRAT]

sounds like your lack of understanding about printing process rather than blaming the JPG format. i'll generally save all my imagery in JPG format whether if be for onscreen or hard copy display.

[Buttman]

I don't know a jack about pixels. I simply set the size of the render pics, y'know 640x480. I wanted to print out of A3 or A4 sizes.

[STRAT]

how crisp and clear do you want to get?

 

generally 200-300 dpi is more than acceptable for a4/a3 printing.

 

if you render at 640x480 from your renderer, at the standard 72 dpi, no amount of re-sizing or file format conversion in photoshop will give you a crisp image. you just dont have the pixels there in the first place.

 

to get a half decent image for a4/a3 draft printing you'll need to render at atleast 2000x1500 pixels. (maybe 1600x1200 pixels if ur less fussy)

[IHAB]

I don't know a jack about pixels. I simply set the size of the render pics, y'know 640x480. I wanted to print out of A3 or A4 sizes.

 

It seams you are simply used for using the render menu buttons (800x600),(640x480),.......right?

I suggest to wright the res. size after pushing the aspect lock to 1.3

the min size I use to render is 2000x1500 for screen show,as for printing>starting with 2500+

[pi1031]

JPEG is a very popular format and the most user friendly... Use JPEG's at 150 DPI, get in the habit of NOT EVER resaving a JPEG since it is a lossy compression. Use JPEG for sharing and e-mailing the renderings, for printing purposes send a flat tiff to the print shop it will be better, for your own records keep the photoshop file in its original PSD format.

[4DM]

Renders up to 5000 pixels wide is what I would recommend, that's good for prints up to A1 and beyond.

 

You never know how big a client will ask to to go, so you might as well start off as high res as you can.

No point starting low res, and having to re-do it all again if a large format print is required.

 

480x640 is for little animations viewed on screen, or for quick interim views to send via dial-up. Even then, the detail will be pitiful.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Cheers,

 

D.

[AJLynn]

A lot of printers seem to do best when the resolution of your printed image is 150 or 300 PPI. Figure out the size of the image on the piece of paper, accounting for printer margins, then the pixel dimensions you will need, and use that. So 640x480 is good if your printout is a bit over 4x3 inches.

 

Also, JPG is compressed but unless it's with low quality options like Strat said it's usually good enough. If you still don't like it try PNG - that's all I use with Max, it's a lossless compression. In Cinema4D I usually render straight to Photoshop format.

[salf]

im gonna use this thread to ask something Im not quite certain yet, be avised im kinda dumb about pixels and printing sizes, etc......

 

Is the following true? :

 

"If the image is gonna be printed in a small format, lets say a magazine, the rendering must be atleast 2000px and 300dpi (or some variations aroound that), but if the image is gonna be printed as a big format, lets say a commercial banner on a construction site , the rendering could be smaller, lest say 1000px and 150 dpi (or something around that) "

[ecastillor]

I don't know a jack about pixels. I simply set the size of the render pics, y'know 640x480. I wanted to print out of A3 or A4 sizes.

 

no wonder you get blury images... 640x480 is not even enought for screen viewing....

 

for a4 size, make your renders at leats 2500 pix3els wide, as said before

[DennisHolland]

It's the resolution, not the format. Jpeg (not too much compr.) is good for plain printing your renderings. You simply can not print a sharp image from 640 x 480 px on A3. The blurry effect is because of the low resolution when your printer build dots, your input are square pixels and therefore your printer makes the best out of the input, which is way too low in resolution.

 

2000+ pixels for A4 and over 3000 px for A3 and bigger.

 

Regards,

Dennis

[alfienoakes]

If you are not sure, use the print size wizard in Viz.. It will let you choose DPI, then desired output size, A3 / A4 etc.. then it works out the pixel size, and theres a button to then go straight to the render dia box..

 

Easy peasy...

[IC]

Wow I think there's only a few members left who haven't posted the same info on this thread

"If the image is gonna be printed in a small format, lets say a magazine, the rendering must be atleast 2000px and 300dpi (or some variations aroound that), but if the image is gonna be printed as a big format, lets say a commercial banner on a construction site , the rendering could be smaller, lest say 1000px and 150 dpi (or something around that) "

 

It is true to a certain extent. You'll see far more detail in a magazine spread than on a billboard (as your eye is closer to it) so smaller resolutions are accepted for larger formats but the printers still want them as big as possible.

 

The quality standard for printed media (especially magazines) is very high.

[Buttman]

Thanks for your replys. Here's a problem,..after I set the size of A3 paper in tif. file, now i have to choose which one..16bits or 32bits? what's going on?

[Buttman]

I've set up the size of A4 which automatically fixed into 300 dpi but I lowered to 200 dpi and the output will be in .tiff file. Is that rite? By the way, the renderings took 6 hours!!

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

at this point i would say stick with 8 bit images. yes, 16 and 32 bit store more information, but not more detail. unless you do extensive curve and gamma adjustments. 8 bits are straight forward, and will confuse you the least at this point.

 

lowering it to 200 should be fine.

 

save in .tiff format.

 

6 hours. you can probably tweak your settings to render faster, but yes, in general, the higher your resolution, the longer your image is going to take to render. search the forums for ways to speed up your renderings, it is an ongoing subject that gets brought up often.

 

also, read this link for more info on printing...

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/showthread.php?t=5759&highlight=printing

[AJLynn]

Wait a minute, what program are we talking about? Max/Viz? Do you use Photoshop to print?

 

The important numbers are in the Max/Viz Common tab in the renderer, where the 640 and the 480 go. Increase these substantially. You don't need to care about a DPI value in the saved file, what's important is the number of pixels being saved - not the dots per inche, because until you print it the image does not have a size in inches.

 

Later, when you print (say, in Photoshop) you can adjust image size (without resampling) to get the desired print size. Use a calculator before setting the numbers in Max, multiplying your dimensions in inches by 150 or 300 or whatever you want to use, when you enter those dimensions in inches in Photoshop you will see that your DPI resolution is correct.

 

You can save the rendered image as a PNG file - this is a great lossless compression format that is compatible with all common graphics programs and supports alpha channel.

 

BTW, 6 hours is not at all unusual.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

well, i don't really know what size A4 is, i think it is around 9"x12". so dropping an A4 image from 300 pp1 to 200 ppi for rendering really shouldn't be a problem.