Pixels - embarassingly dumb question

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Richard Fangnail" <richardfangnail@excite.com> wrote in message

> In Paint you can go to Attributes and it says 96x96 or 300x300 etc.
> I've never been clear on what that means. Does that mean something
> that has only to do with printing and not viewing the image on a
> screen?

Correct. This is only to do with printing and even so it serves no
practical purpose since the image will be up or down sampled by the printer
at print time.

--
Mark

Photos, Ideas & Opinions
http://www.marklauter.com

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Richard Fangnail" <richardfangnail@excite.com> wrote in message
news:1124468235.227845.151620@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> In Paint you can go to Attributes and it says 96x96 or 300x300 etc.
> I've never been clear on what that means. Does that mean something
> that has only to do with printing and not viewing the image on a
> screen?
>
> You also can't change that with Paint, although you can with ImageIt
> etc.

Paint is a extreamly basic program. There's so many better and free programs
out there. Try Irfanview - supports nearly all formats and is ideal for
resizing images.

http://www.irfanview.com/

**SS**

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

"Richard Fangnail" <richardfangnail@excite.com> wrote in message
news:1124468235.227845.151620@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> In Paint you can go to Attributes and it says 96x96 or 300x300 etc.
> I've never been clear on what that means. Does that mean something
> that has only to do with printing and not viewing the image on a
> screen?

It gives an indication of what the quality will be like when you print the
image. For example, the thinest line you can draw in paint is one unit wide
so...

If you have a file that contains an image 100 x 100 and you draw the thinest
line possible, then use a program to scale it and print it out so that it
measures 10" x 10" on the page... then the thinest line will come out at
1/10th of an inch wide.

If you do exactly the same but start with an image 1000 x 1000 print it out
at the same 10" x 10" ... then the thinest line will come out be 1/100th of
an inch wide.

> You also can't change that with Paint, although you can with ImageIt

Changing it after it's drawn can never really improve the quality of the
image. If you start with a line one unit wide line and then increase the
resolution by a factor of 10 the line becomes 10 units wide.

The main reason to change the resolution is to reduce the size of the file -
for example to speed up downloading over the internet - but this also
reduces the quality.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

It gives an indication of the physical size.

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"Richard Fangnail" <richardfangnail@excite.com> wrote in message news:1124468235.227845.151620@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> In Paint you can go to Attributes and it says 96x96 or 300x300 etc.
> I've never been clear on what that means. Does that mean something
> that has only to do with printing and not viewing the image on a
> screen?
>
> You also can't change that with Paint, although you can with ImageIt
> etc.
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Richard Fangnail wrote:
> In Paint you can go to Attributes and it says 96x96 or 300x300 etc.
> I've never been clear on what that means. Does that mean something
> that has only to do with printing and not viewing the image on a
> screen?
>
> You also can't change that with Paint, although you can with ImageIt
> etc.
>

Pixels... They can't be measured yet are the measurement volume of an
image! Basically a pixel is a dot sometimes square, sometimes not. It is
safe for the novice to consider DPI (dots per inch) as being PPI (pixels
per inch) in purely loose terms. The description of 72x72 pixels would
produce an on screen image about 25mm (1") square.

You can't see an image on your screen unless it is composed of pixels.
Most screens display an image at about 72 PPI but if you want to print
that image the same size as it is on your screen, you need about 180 to
350 DPI - call that PPI if you like.

Any more at this early stage of your learning will only serve to confuse
you as much as it does nearly everyone else!

--
Douglas,
You never really make it on the 'net
until you get your own personal Troll.
Mine's called Chrlz. Don't feed him, he bites!

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

If I've got two Paint documents open and one is 72x72 resolution and
one is 300x300, and I paste an area from one to the other, that area
will look much bigger or smaller in the second document.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,rec.photo.digital (More info?)

Richard Fangnail wrote:
> If I've got two Paint documents open and one is 72x72 resolution and
> one is 300x300, and I paste an area from one to the other, that area
> will look much bigger or smaller in the second document.
>
Absolutely.
The 72 dpi image is exactly the size needed to fit your monitor. The 300
DPI image is roughly 4 times as large, even though by use of display
drivers you can make it "look" the same size.

When you edit anything, you need to understand that the only size
measurement which counts is how many pixels wide and high the images
are. A 6"x 4" picture which is set to print at 300 dpi will be 1800 x
1200 pixels. The same image set to print at 240 dpi will be 7.5" x 5"
but still 1800 x 1200 pixels. Pixels are the constant, everything else
in measurements is variable.

--
Douglas,
You never really make it on the 'net
until you get your own personal Troll.
Mine's called Chrlz. Don't feed him, he bites!