Photoshop and resolution question

I’m making a banner for a website–roughly 8 inches by 1.5–and I’m having problems with the image quality when it’s set at 72 dpi.

Here’s my techniques so far, but none seem to produce an image that doesn’t look pixelated: File/new, I set the image at

A) 300 dpi and later change the image to 72 when finished
B) double the size and then cut it in half when finished

So my question is, how do I get a good resolution at 72 dpi? (I guess dpi technically doesn’t come into play, as this is a web graphic and not printing) I’m saving the files as GIFs, which is what many banners are on the web, but the JPEGs look the same to me. Any difference there?

It’s’ driving me batty , thanks in advance:confused:

Forget inches and dpi and re-sizing - these are totally irrelevent. Just decide the dimensions you want, in pixels, and make it that size. I can’t tell you what the numbers are, since I don’t know your overall layout. Also, if you’re using type, experiment with the “crisp,” “strong” or “smooth” in the options window; these can help, depending on what fonts you’re using.

Why are you shrinking it at all? Some tips:

1 - Set your units to pixels. Inches have no real meaning on screen.

2 - Start with the file at the size/resolution you want it to end up. On-screen, there’s no real advantage to reducing the final product (like there is with printed matter). It sounds like you’re trying for around 600 x 100 pixels, at 72 dpi.

3 - If you’ve already executed the image and don’t want to start over, check your “Image size…” menu for what options you’re using–if it doesn’t say “Bicubic resampling” (I think that’s the phrase … don’t have Photoshop in front of me to check), it should. Else, things can get blocky.

4 - You say you’re saving it as a GIF. That’s fine, but GIFs have a narrow color palette (so photographs with complex shading, lots of diff. colors, etc., may look crappy, since it may try to paint them with, say, 16 colors instead of 16.7 million). If none of the above works, try (a) double-checking what sort of palette your GIF is being saved with (128 colors? less?) or (b) saving it as a JPEG.

Word up. You should be concerned about pixels, not inches. Also make sure you have anti-aliasing turned on when you put in the text (that is, if you can even turn it off; it’s been a while for me and Photoshop :slight_smile: ).

I think I know what you’re talking about. I’ve had similar problems. If you want to worry about the dpi then create everything in 300. If you’re stretching out the images while at that high of a resolutions your pictures are going to suffer and look pixelated. Whatever you do, flatten the image before you convert it to 72 dpi this way your text will come out smooth. Don’t forget to save a copy of the larger 300 version in case you need to do some editing to the banner.

The best way to insure you are going to have the correct size banner I recommend you do this.

  1. Click on File/New
  2. Set your object to whatever size you want at a 72 dpi.
  3. Click on Image/Image size and change the dpi to three hundred.
  4. Do your work.
  5. Save a copy of the larger resolution file.
  6. Flatten your image
  7. Click on Image/Image size and put the dpi back to 72.
  8. Save for web.
    To answer your other question, jpegs use a lot more colors than gifs. Gifs can be assigned to use only a certain amount of color thus saving on file space.

Hope I was of some help

I repeat:

The dpi number is totally meaningless; there are not dots and no inches, only pixels.

Set it at higher than 72 dpi, then use “Export to Web.”

      • My vote is the same as toadspittle’s, assuming that you are trying to use anything other than jpegs [because jpegs are 16 million colors anyway]: when you begin with the image at 2X or 4X, set the image color to 16 million colors–even with a gif, or start with a jpeg if your program won’t allow you to run a gif at 16 mil (you cannot save a gif at 16 million colors, but many programs allow you to work with it at that color depth). Do whatever drawing you wish, then reduce the image to the actual pixel size you need, and then reduce the colors to 256, and then save as a gif.

Generally, you get pixelation if you try to expand or reduce an image at less than 16 milion colors. Also–> use a resampling method if you can choose–do not use “pixel resize” or “smart size”, use bilinear or bicubic re-sampling.
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