When setting up the rendering, is there a way that you can control the dots per inch of your renders? I know you can control how big it is but I did not notice a way to set dots per inch. I'm asking because I had made a scene for a client and he needed a higher resolution for prints on t-shirts. I had made the images 1000 x 500 with 100 dpi, but they came out very pixelated when printed on the shirts.
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100 dpi (dots per inch) means 100 dots in 25,4mm (sorry, I´m in a metric country).
1000 dots means the your picture has a size of 25,4 cm on one side.
For such a big picture 1000 dots (or pixels) seems not much. Rather the opposite.
I assume you mix up something there.
Of course the resolution capability of the printer is what you should look for.
If it is just 100 dpi (which I think would be low) then you can even go with a higher resolution as an input.
For what I know about pixel to shirt transition:
It´s printed on a transfer paper and then ironed on the shirt (there a different methods of course). On the transfer paper you might reach a resolution close to what a modern inkjet is capable. And that would be in the 600 to 1200 dpi range (of course only with 4, 5 or maybe 6 colors, so it´s NOT quite the truecolor resolution, but I wouldn´t go to much into detail here).
In short:
For a picture 25 cm by 12,5 cm you should consider 2500 by 1250 pixels as a starting point. If that still "pixels" in the end you shall analyse the whole workflow ans -chain.
Harald
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1000 x 500 pixels at 100 dpi makes a 10 x 5 inch picture, right? Basically the 100 dpi is pretty close to the resolution of any computer display and a T-shit is not the most accurate material to print on, so I wouldn't expect that to look pix... ehh 'pixelated' :) ...at least a few feet away... I'm only guessing but it is possible, that somebody in the supply chain has not known what they're doing and has then done something that should not have been done -- like scaled your picture down, saved it and then printed it bigger.
I have seen this happen, when somebody just opened a high-res picture on a viewer, then took a screen capture of the (scaled down) view and pasted that into the print work --> the resolution was lost and the outcome was very pixeled. This person did not know about the "import/insert picture" functions of that software. It looked OK on the screen of course, but on paper ... :(
But to be sure: Why don't you print your picture on paper as 10x5 inch and compare it to the T-shirt? That should give you a hint of what has happened.
When printing on paper ... there was the time, when black and white printers did 72 dots per inch and that was considered good enough. When you go over 300 dpi, then the media that you are printig on is really setting the limits to the quality and most of us would need a magnifying glass to see the difference.
Having answered "no" earlier, (and I think you know this already) the "reverse engineering" of the resolution is simple: When you know the size of the final print, just multiply the dimensions with the desired printing resolution. 10" x 300dpi makes 3000 pixels, which is huge on the screen but should be sufficient for most uses I can think of.... (And no need to convert it to the metric system ;) ) -- And if you overdo the size of the input image that should not hurt. What ever the bottle neck of the chain is, it will "take care of it". :)
Last edit: Pete 2014-03-15
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Any image you plan to use must be saved at approximately 300-dpi at 100% output size for the very best printing results.:
Full Bleed Size 12.00" x 12.00"30.5 x 30.5 cm2100 x 2100 pixels
Document Trim Size 12.00" x 12.00"30.5 x 30.5 cm2100 x 2100 pixels
Resolution refers to the number of dots per inch (dpi), or the amount of detail the image has.
Most documents prepared for upload should be 300 dpi at 100% of the final print size. Higher resolution means a more detailed image, and also larger file and longer upload time. [/quote]
I wish I was told about that earlier.
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Well, it's a pitty, but then, there are always surprises awaiting, when you are doing something new. And all too often mistakes seem way too simple afterwards...
Me and my colleagues just some time ago figured it out, that the learning curve is actually a circle: You make the mistakes to learn and when you have learned enough you find yourself back, where you started and start it all over again... :D
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The "dots per inch" is just determined by the size of your image (in pixels) and the physical size it's printed at. Some image formats (but not all) have the ability to specify a dpi value, but that's really just a suggestion for what size to display it at. You can display any image at any size you want.
So if you want more dots per inch, just render a larger image and print it at the same size.
Peter
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When setting up the rendering, is there a way that you can control the dots per inch of your renders? I know you can control how big it is but I did not notice a way to set dots per inch. I'm asking because I had made a scene for a client and he needed a higher resolution for prints on t-shirts. I had made the images 1000 x 500 with 100 dpi, but they came out very pixelated when printed on the shirts.
100 dpi (dots per inch) means 100 dots in 25,4mm (sorry, I´m in a metric country).
1000 dots means the your picture has a size of 25,4 cm on one side.
For such a big picture 1000 dots (or pixels) seems not much. Rather the opposite.
I assume you mix up something there.
Of course the resolution capability of the printer is what you should look for.
If it is just 100 dpi (which I think would be low) then you can even go with a higher resolution as an input.
For what I know about pixel to shirt transition:
It´s printed on a transfer paper and then ironed on the shirt (there a different methods of course). On the transfer paper you might reach a resolution close to what a modern inkjet is capable. And that would be in the 600 to 1200 dpi range (of course only with 4, 5 or maybe 6 colors, so it´s NOT quite the truecolor resolution, but I wouldn´t go to much into detail here).
In short:
For a picture 25 cm by 12,5 cm you should consider 2500 by 1250 pixels as a starting point. If that still "pixels" in the end you shall analyse the whole workflow ans -chain.
Harald
The short answer would be "no".
1000 x 500 pixels at 100 dpi makes a 10 x 5 inch picture, right? Basically the 100 dpi is pretty close to the resolution of any computer display and a T-shit is not the most accurate material to print on, so I wouldn't expect that to look pix... ehh 'pixelated' :) ...at least a few feet away... I'm only guessing but it is possible, that somebody in the supply chain has not known what they're doing and has then done something that should not have been done -- like scaled your picture down, saved it and then printed it bigger.
I have seen this happen, when somebody just opened a high-res picture on a viewer, then took a screen capture of the (scaled down) view and pasted that into the print work --> the resolution was lost and the outcome was very pixeled. This person did not know about the "import/insert picture" functions of that software. It looked OK on the screen of course, but on paper ... :(
But to be sure: Why don't you print your picture on paper as 10x5 inch and compare it to the T-shirt? That should give you a hint of what has happened.
When printing on paper ... there was the time, when black and white printers did 72 dots per inch and that was considered good enough. When you go over 300 dpi, then the media that you are printig on is really setting the limits to the quality and most of us would need a magnifying glass to see the difference.
Having answered "no" earlier, (and I think you know this already) the "reverse engineering" of the resolution is simple: When you know the size of the final print, just multiply the dimensions with the desired printing resolution. 10" x 300dpi makes 3000 pixels, which is huge on the screen but should be sufficient for most uses I can think of.... (And no need to convert it to the metric system ;) ) -- And if you overdo the size of the input image that should not hurt. What ever the bottle neck of the chain is, it will "take care of it". :)
Last edit: Pete 2014-03-15
I finally found the service's page and this is what I was finally able to find out:
[quote]
Vistaprint t-shirt requirements
http://www.vistaprint.com/vp/ns/propath/UploadResources.aspx
Any image you plan to use must be saved at approximately 300-dpi at 100% output size for the very best printing results.:
Full Bleed Size 12.00" x 12.00"30.5 x 30.5 cm2100 x 2100 pixels
Document Trim Size 12.00" x 12.00"30.5 x 30.5 cm2100 x 2100 pixels
Resolution refers to the number of dots per inch (dpi), or the amount of detail the image has.
Most documents prepared for upload should be 300 dpi at 100% of the final print size. Higher resolution means a more detailed image, and also larger file and longer upload time.
[/quote]
I wish I was told about that earlier.
Well, it's a pitty, but then, there are always surprises awaiting, when you are doing something new. And all too often mistakes seem way too simple afterwards...
Me and my colleagues just some time ago figured it out, that the learning curve is actually a circle: You make the mistakes to learn and when you have learned enough you find yourself back, where you started and start it all over again... :D
The "dots per inch" is just determined by the size of your image (in pixels) and the physical size it's printed at. Some image formats (but not all) have the ability to specify a dpi value, but that's really just a suggestion for what size to display it at. You can display any image at any size you want.
So if you want more dots per inch, just render a larger image and print it at the same size.
Peter