[at-l] Megapixel Madness--Way Off Topic & Long

[lparker@cacaphony.net (L. Parker)]

"Jim Bullard" <bullard@northnet.org> wrote in message
news:<mailman.1036851490.99153.at-l@mailman.backcountry.net>...

Thanks for the great explanation of the differences between camera and print
resolution. You overlooked a few technical items on the printing side, but I
judge they weren't really important to the point and probably would have
made the explanation way too confusing <G>.

[clip]

Certainly magazine and book reproduction varies in quality.  Not all
publishers print to the same standards.  The quote I included in a previous
post however, was from *a magazine editor* (Peterson's PHOTOGRAPHIC) who
was stating what his magazine *requires*.  It was not something I wrote.  I
know that many other publishers have similar (or higher) standards and that
"almost ANY digital camera will produce sufficient quality for a magazine
spread" is not true.  You don't have to believe me.  Write to several
magazines that accept digital files for publication and ask for their
submission guidelines.

[clip]

Excuse me for being unclear, I did not say that ANY magazine would accept
standard digital camera images, I said that they "produce sufficient
quality". You are totally correct in saying that few magazines will accept
them.

Since we are getting pretty far off topic, I will make this short. When a
publication that is using digital publishing inserts an image into the
document, the image is at the "full resolution" which is to say, it contains
as many pixels as they can get. However, this number is typically far beyond
what the raster image processor (the RIP) requires for processing and far
beyond what it actually prints. As you said, once the information is
discarded, there is no way to get it back, so the RIP gets as much as they
can give it.

The main reason that the better, photo oriented magazines require the larger
files is that they are still printing from hard media, not electronic. They
actually print a copy of the image to a slide, then make a print at the
appropriate size for the layout and then paste it to the layout, then burn
three or four print plates from the layout in a process that is basically
photographic.

Lee I Joe

Once I knew where I was going, but now I have  forgotten.  Sometimes my mind
wanders.  Sometimes it goes alone, and other times it takes me along...this
isn't one of those times...