Reply To: InDesign/Prepress Myths

Jong and David, I'm fairly certain that Raphael is NOT talking about placing/printing a 1200 ppi scan for final output! He specifically said he'd *scan* it at 1200 ppi. That would make it much easier to clean up/sharpen fine text in Photoshop. Then from that point he could convert to whatever format/rez is suitable.

Raphael also said:

As far as how low the resolution can go really depends on the image in question, what size it's going to actually print at (a physically small image isn't going to make much of a difference), the kind of paper being used etc.

This is important too, and a great point. If you've got an architectural image with lots of sharp diagonals and high contrast colors, it'd be better to err toward the high end of the res range (go with 280 rather than 220 ppi, for instance). And if it's going to print on glossy stock at a large size and be the focal point of the spread, then ramp it up to 300.

But if you've got a small head shot, or a medium landscape, 220 ppi is going to serve just as well as 300 on the same kind of paper.

AM