Basic Artwork File Sizing

evlyntaylor1

Hi there, please bare with me as I have only ever used Photoshop.  I have been mucking around in DAZ3D for a few days now and after spending many hours creating a cityscape that I could render and then put into an artwork in Photoshop it turns out the render is SO small that I can barely see it on my artwork.  So my first question is - when I create a new scene in DAZ is there a way to preset the size of the file, as I would in Photoshop (eg. 13inch x 9inch canvas at 350DPI, etc) to ensure that once rendered, it will be large enough to use in Photohop?

sriesch

Render Settings pane > Pixel Size (Global)

Set W to the width, H to the height that you want the rendered image to be.  If you have the "Constrain Proportions (Global)" parameter set to Off, you can set these two values independently, otherwise when you change one the other will be automatically changed so your render retains the same aspect ratio.

 

I usually set it slightly smaller than my screen size so I can see the render while working on it, then when I'm completely done I temporarily change it to the final size and save it then set it back to a smaller working size.

Fishtales

Set the output render image to 4550x3150 pixels (13x9 at 350ppi)

Richard Haseltine

The size fields will do simple maths, so you can enter 13*350 and 9*350 if you prefer. Note that DS deals only in absolute pixel sizes - there's no PPI setting in its saved files; use Image>Size in Photoshop to set the desired PPI value, with Resample unchecked so that it doesn't change the pixels themselves but only their print size.

KurzonDax

Richard Haseltine said:

The size fields will do simple maths, so you can enter 13*350 and 9*350 if you prefer.

Wow, that is an awesome tip.  Reaally glad you put that out there.  

Fishtales

Richard

PPI is really irrelevant until the image is being saved for print PPI and DPI are two different things. The size of the file determines the max size that can be printed given the dot size of the printer. All the files I save for the internet are set to '0' in IrfanView or '1' in PS as it doesn't allow a zero PPI  They are 1000 pixels wide so that, no matter the resolution of the screen they are being viewed on, they will always be 1000 pixels wide. For printing the on my old Canon inkjet the optimum DPI was 259, I don't know how I got that figure it was twenty years ago, so for the pixel size I gave I would have been able to print at 17.5x12 inches as long as when saving I set the image size and PPI correctly.

http://www.dpiphoto.eu/dpi.htm

http://www.scantips.com/no72dpib.html#6

Richard Haseltine

DPI is a measure of ink resolution, PPI is a measure of image resolution. Because ink dots have a more limited rnage of colours than pixels the PPI value will always be lower than the DPI for standard printers. Image resolution is often labelled DPI, but it isn't. (And for completeness, a scanner's resolution is measured in SPI - Samples per Inch.) You are of course right that PPI matters only when printing, or placing an image in an application like Illustrator that uses inches to determine size and placement - which is why DS is able to work only in absolute pixel dimensions.

Tobor

Sometimes the concept of "optimum" is in the details you only see with a magnifying glass. Makes for lively discussion on forums.

For example, the traditional Epson piezo printhead has a 360 DPI resolution, because that's how the jets are arranged. So folks got the idea that sending the printer a 360 PPI image would eliminate internal scaling. Turns out the scaling in the printer is better than the one in most graphics programs. People would resample from 300 PPI to 360, in order to keep the same print size. The results were marginal, at best, and often worse, because they'd invariable choose the wrong resampling algorithm for enlargement.

@evlyntaylor1, did you mean 13x9, or 13x19? Either way, but especially the later, that's one big render if you want it at 350 DPI. If the render is excessively long, you might consider halving the size, and then using a good photo resizer to double it. Assuming this is for printing (13x19 usually is), you likely will not see any qualitative difference in the output.