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Posted By : Christopher_Heath - 4/14/2007 3:59 PM

I know that 72dpi is good for web graphics, 300 dpi is color print resolution, but I'm not sure what it means when the resolution is expressed in two numbers, like below (600x600 dpi or 4800x1200 dpi). Are either of these print resolution, why do they write them that way?

	HP Deskjet F335 All-in-One Printer, Copier & Scanner $44.88 Inkjet Printer 17 pgs/min - B/W, 11 pgs/min - Color 600 x 600 dpi Printer, Scanner, Copier

	Lexmark X1240 All In One Printer $32.88 Inkjet Printer 17 pgs/min - B/W, 9 pgs/min - Color 4800 x 1200 dpi Printer, Scanner, Copier

Christopher M. Heath

"Azieran: Savior in a Flask" in Mages and Mechanica by Ricasso Press

"Azieran: The Travelers Four" in Black Dragon, White Dragon by Ricasso Press

"Azieran: The Breaking of Hell's Bones" in Black Sails by 1018 Press

"Azieran: Distilling the Essence" in Sails and Sorcery by Fantasist Enterprises

"Azieran: The Conquerors" in Chimaera Serials

"Azieran: Pawn of the Serpentine Witch" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: Sentinel of an Ageless Reign" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: The Lakeshorn Mirrors" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: Crestfallen in Mal'kyrrik" serialized novella in Forgotten Worlds

"Azieran: Wyrd Sins" in Rogue Worlds

+ others

Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/14/2007 4:06 PM

600x600 dpi = dots per inche. So that means 600 dots per inch wide and 600 dots per inch high.

4800x1200 dpi is a much higher resoultion than 600x600

The more dots you can pack together in a single inch, the sharper your details will be.

If you're doing just text, take the 600x600

If you are gong to be printing out high resoultion graphics, take the 4800x1200

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!

Visit my art gallery on art wanted at
http://artwanted.com/crystalwizard

All my books in print:
http://sojourn.omnitech.net

Posted By : Christopher_Heath - 4/14/2007 4:18 PM

Thanks CrystalWizard! But I'm still confused.

So if print resolution for graphics is 300 dpi (I'm assuming that means 300 high by 300 wide, because 300 dots total in a square inch doesn't seem like that many) and is considered pretty much picture perfect, why would you need 600 x 600 dpi, and wouldn't that be better than print resolution, yet you say that's only good if I'm just doing text. 4800 x 1200 seems overkill, if 300 dpi is print resolution. I hope you see now why I'm confused, and I hope you can offer an explanation.

Christopher M. Heath

"Azieran: Savior in a Flask" in Mages and Mechanica by Ricasso Press

"Azieran: The Travelers Four" in Black Dragon, White Dragon by Ricasso Press

"Azieran: The Breaking of Hell's Bones" in Black Sails by 1018 Press

"Azieran: Distilling the Essence" in Sails and Sorcery by Fantasist Enterprises

"Azieran: The Conquerors" in Chimaera Serials

"Azieran: Pawn of the Serpentine Witch" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: Sentinel of an Ageless Reign" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: The Lakeshorn Mirrors" in Chronicles of Fantasy by ComStar Media

"Azieran: Crestfallen in Mal'kyrrik" serialized novella in Forgotten Worlds

"Azieran: Wyrd Sins" in Rogue Worlds

+ others

Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/14/2007 4:34 PM

The higher the number, the better. Most of the printers on the market aren't going to be just used for text any more. People are going to want to print out photos. Mom and dad don't need super high resoultion for a photo of the grand kids, but they aren't going to have a massive image to shrink down either.

remember two things:

When you shrink an image, the detail gets better (to a point). You take a snapshot with your digital camera and email it to me, I click print. I expect to get a nice, sharp photo on my printer paper. 1024 isn't going to give you a very large picture. it's going to be an itty, bitty rectangle on a standard printer. We don't want that, but with only 300 dots per inch we're going to have blurry details. So we give you more dots per inch and fake it.

is 4800x1200 over kill. That depends on what you're printing. It's overkill for text. It's over kill for home snapshots. It's not overkill for high resolution graphics of a larger size.

They really shouldn't have written the ad like they did. They probably should have written it in pixels-by-pixels @ dpi.

It looks like the second one will probably give you a decent 8.5x11 color print out.

are they in a store where you can get a print sample and see what it looks like?

Posted By : Firlefanz - 4/15/2007 3:53 AM

I think that most printers can only do about 300dpi, as much as you push them. Pro publisher printers can do more than that, obviously, especially if they do color prints.

I noticed those facts are about a printer / scanner / copier. I would think that the resolution refers to the scanner function. That's where it's important to have high resolution - just so that you get as much information from the original as you can.

I hope this helps.

- Call me Firle.

Hannah Steenbock

Mystical Adventures
Beyond Horizons

Posted By : Xangis - 4/16/2007 6:16 PM

Printers have different X and Y dimensions, so if you sent something at 4800dpi to that first printer it would print the X scale at 4800 dpi while the Y scale would be decreased to 1200dpi by the printer. You most often see a difference because although moving a print head from left to right is a very precise operation, advancing a sheet of paper is not as precise.

Very few people can tell the difference above 600dpi, nobody I've met can tell the difference above 1200dpi.

It is still ridiculous that they allow different X and Y dpi resolutions on a printer. I blame marketing.

Jason Champion
Editor, All Possible Worlds
www.allpossibleworlds.net

Posted By : crystalwizard - 4/16/2007 6:24 PM

well... but as Firle pointed out, those are also copiers and scanners, so that information is nice to have for those functions. And you want to scan your stuff at the highest resolution possible so it doesn't loose detail.

The problem isn't in whether you can tell the difference, the problem is that people want to take small images and blow 'em up. And you do lose detail badly when you do that, so this helps with that problem.

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