buyer says 600 dpi

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Archive 2008 · buyer says 600 dpi

winman3
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p.1 #1 · buyer says 600 dpi

I'm dealing with an agency manager who hired me to cover an event. Photos will be printed in a newspaper and in their high-quality glossy brochure and/or even in their glossy annual report.
She tells me she needs 600 dpi images. When I asked about file format, colour space, image dimensions, exif data, etc. she went blank. She says someone told her photos should be 600 dpi. I stated 300 dpi full-size (Canon 5D) images in jpg 12 quality (Photoshop) at 8 bit depth should be enough for any and all offset litho commercial printing jobs.
I may give her uncompressed tif files. I have not drawn up a contract yet with the specs specified.

Am I right? Is 300 dpi enough for commercial print jobs?

Thank you for any comments.

Nov 21, 2008 at 06:33 AM

mdude85
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p.1 #2 · buyer says 600 dpi

I mean, 300 DPI is pretty standard, but any magazine could print at a higher quality if it wanted to, so I wouldn't really argue the point. She obviously is not the person designing the magazine, so just tell her the photos are 600 DPI and be done with it. Besides, DPI is not an image specification, it is a printer/scanner specification.

Nov 21, 2008 at 02:06 PM

Kevin Sherman
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p.1 #3 · buyer says 600 dpi

yeah, dpi and ppi are very different. IIRC, 240ppi (pixels per inch) is standard for at least the 5D. 600dpi (dots per inch) is a printing specification.

As a side note, don't most magazines print in half tone?

Nov 21, 2008 at 03:48 PM

jjlphoto
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p.1 #4 · buyer says 600 dpi

PPI is a measurement for digital files, as mentioned. Many large HP printers need 600 PPI for incoming files for example. Epson's work best anywhere from 180 PPI to 360 PPI.

DPI is a measure of an inkjet priinters output. Their outputs can be anywhere from 720 DPI for a mid-grade output, up to 2880 and even higher for a super high quality output.

Offset printers are measured in LPI (Lines Per Inch). Newspapers are what- 85 LPI? Most magazines are printed anywhere from 150~200 LPI. Fine Art books may be printed at 300 LPI.

http://expressiveimage.com/pdfs/PPI_DPI_and_LPI_Difference.pdf

As far as color space goes, for uneducated buyers, send 'em sRGB files.

Nov 21, 2008 at 04:26 PM

Brent Ward
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p.1 #5 · buyer says 600 dpi

I'm not aware of any litho presses printing at 300 LPI ( which would be 600dpi)

Mostly it's text that's ripped at 600 dpi. I have had projects printed on 200 lpi (400dpi) presses before. The quality is amazing.

Nov 21, 2008 at 05:20 PM

jefferies1
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p.1 #6 · buyer says 600 dpi

Best to just give her what she wants since it is most likely something she read and does not really know why she is asking for it. I think my 5D does 300DPI at 14x9 and will then be 600 DPI at 7x5ish size. Give a Tiff so it is a many MB as youn can get.No one can quastion a file of that size, if they can even get it to open on a low ram computer

Most likely all she will be looking is for 600 to appear in the specs, not the size in inches or MB size.

Nov 21, 2008 at 06:46 PM

jjlphoto
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p.1 #7 · buyer says 600 dpi

jefferies1 wrote:
Best to just give her what she wants since it is most likely something she read and does not really know why she is asking for it.

Problem with that is that there is no such thing as a file with "DPI". It's like asking for a 16 bit layered jpeg with alpha channels intact.

Nov 22, 2008 at 03:22 PM

Ivo Kwee
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p.1 #8 · buyer says 600 dpi

Isn't "dpi" meaningless without specifying the final print size? A 600x600 pixels image is 600dpi if you print it 1"x1" ...

Nov 22, 2008 at 06:48 PM

jjlphoto
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p.1 #9 · buyer says 600 dpi

DPI only refers to an actual physically printed output with physically measurable "dots" laid down by some sort of printer. Again, DPI cannot be used to describe a digital file as it does not describe anything the file has. If the client wants PPI, then they need to state PPI, not DPI. By stating DPI, they are in essence saying they are clueless and don't know what they are talking about (and shouldn't be in the position of purchasing photography). Would you use MegaBytes to describe processor speed? Would you use MegaHertz to describe disk storage size

Nov 22, 2008 at 08:19 PM

dennishh
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p.1 #10 · buyer says 600 dpi

This is just another example of an "agency manager" who just was promoted from secretary or intern. Most of the time when I hear this I ask to talk to the AD who will be using the images. If your files are 350dpi @ 10x16 (1DsMK3) you can re size them to 5x8@ 600dpi and deliver them. They now meet her unknown requirements and it should be the last you hear of it.

Nov 22, 2008 at 09:03 PM

Micky Bill
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p.1 #11 · buyer says 600 dpi

jjlphoto wrote:
By stating DPI, they are in essence saying they are clueless and don't know what they are talking about (and shouldn't be in the position of purchasing photography).

dennishh wrote:
This is just another example of an "agency manager" who just was promoted from secretary or intern. .

The art buyers that I deal with (TBWA\CHIAT\DAY, The Designory, BBDO) are not clueless, but they are passing on info from someone else, either an AD or a designer or a production manager who often give them sketchy and or wrong details. They are in the middle and everybody likes to slap the guy in the middle. I'm sure art buyers have plenty of stories of photographers who don't have a clue about estimating or billing a job.

Nov 22, 2008 at 09:36 PM

dennishh
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p.1 #12 · buyer says 600 dpi

He was talking about an "Agency Manager" not an art buyer. If it were an art buyer he wouldn't be having these problems. Why should agencies be exempt from getting the proper information to their suppliers? With this kind of information no photographer would even bother bidding on the job.

Nov 23, 2008 at 02:48 AM

winman3
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p.1 #13 · buyer says 600 dpi

Thanks, guys, she will get her "600 dpi" photos.

After all, she's the one with the cheque book. Once I'm holding the payment I'll explain to her about dpi and lpi briefly. Her only interest is getting the images her printer can use. In fact, I'm angling to design her literature, too, so I'll decide on photo specs.

BTW, we're talking a social agency here, not an ad agency, so she can be forgiven for not being too savvy with photo/print lingo.

Nov 23, 2008 at 05:27 AM

Micky Bill
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p.1 #14 · buyer says 600 dpi

ooops. I read agency manager and assumed ad agency or something related to photography, not a social worker.

Nov 23, 2008 at 06:07 AM

genoph
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p.1 #15 · buyer says 600 dpi

People switch DPI and PPI within the print industry, it doesn't reall matter though, all it does is determine print specs, which can be resized as needed. Art Directors always overstate the required DPI (or PPI) So they don't get down-rezzed images, and so that GD's create their images big enough to be resized to anything under the sun.

Nov 23, 2008 at 06:24 AM

dennishh
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p.1 #16 · buyer says 600 dpi

They do always overstate the dpi requirement, as we all know. Usually that requirement changes when you bring up renting a 60mp Hasselblad at $800 a day and goes back to reality really fast. I'm glad to hear you may get more work out of this!

Nov 23, 2008 at 03:06 PM

JHerr
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p.1 #17 · buyer says 600 dpi

Curves until your picture looks overly contrasty, sharpen until it looks severly overly sharpened. boom.

Nov 24, 2008 at 07:00 AM

haijak
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p.1 #18 · buyer says 600 dpi

There is no difference between DPI and PPI. They have nothing to do with the quality of the image or the resolution. Yes you can have a 300dpi file that's only 32px square, 1bpp and completely useless to anybody.

Accurate representation of image quality requires 3 things.
- Total resolution (pixel width X height)
- Color space (Adobe RGB, LAB, CMYK)
- Bit depth (8, 16, or 32bit)

For a gross estimation of quality some people use uncompressed file size. A 25MB file won't be as good as a 150MB file. But that is only if you need to minimize it down to a single stat. If you can at all, use the right numbers.

Nov 24, 2008 at 06:55 PM

mdude85
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p.1 #19 · buyer says 600 dpi

haijak wrote:
There is no difference between DPI and PPI.

They are two very different things. PPI is synonymous with SPI (samples per inch), but it is a misnomer to say that SPI is synonymous with DPI or that PPI is synonymous with DPI.

Nov 24, 2008 at 07:25 PM

fotodik
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p.1 #20 · buyer says 600 dpi

To the best of my knowledge, commercial printing presses don't go above 175 lpi or dpi,
and I believe that's National Geographic quality. Back in film days, the agencies always
asked for a scan at 2x the solution of the printing press, so 300 dpi for a 150-155 line screen printing.
but with digital images there is no grain and no scanning, so your images out of the camera should be fine.
Again, to reiterate, 600 dpi without a size is a meaningless statement, and to my knowledge there is no lithographic press that can even remotely get close to 600dpi. Just my 2 cents

Roy Engelbrecht

Nov 26, 2008 at 07:24 PM

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