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Resolution and Scanning8

Many designers already know what resolution should be used for print,
but do not know why. Similarly, many know what resolution should be
used for an image saved for placement on a website, but have no idea
that the terminology still used is redundant because the technology has
moved on—and that images will change size as a result. And then there
are other kinds of resolution: We know about “dots per inch,” but what
about “lines per inch”? Are these two connected, and if so, how?

Another resolution number suddenly appears when we consider either

our desktop printer, or the imagesetter producing the plates for commer-
cial printing: Suddenly we have a whole combination of numbers, each
relating to some kind of resolution: 72, 150, 300, 1440, 3600. All these have
a vital part to play.

Resolution can be a very confusing area unless you have an overview of

what is going on. Then you can see how all these numbers relate, even
though they apply to separate components of the design and printing
process, and you will be able to decide exactly what is needed for a par-
ticular kind of image, heading for a particular kind of printing, even on a
particular kind of paper. And, best of all, resolution issues will never con-
fuse you again.

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What is so Special about 300?

Most designers I have talked to about resolution have been told that they
are supposed to scan everything at 300dpi, but they do not really know
why. In fact, there is a formula that can be applied to any project which
shows that 300dpi is not, in fact, the magic number for everything, all the
time.

There are two factors involved in determining how much of the original
detail an image can hold. One is the dpi, which determines how many pix-
els there are per inch of image. The other is the physical size of the image
as it will appear on the page. If you have only one of these pieces of infor-
mation then, excuse the pun, you do not have the whole picture.

For example, I am often asked to send images here and there, and told
that they are needed at something like “roughly 10 x 12 inches.” As I ex-
plained in Chapter 7, the file size of a 10 x 12in image at 72dpi is very dif-
ferent from a 10 x 12in image at 300dpi. Unless I am told the resolution as
well as the size, I have no way of knowing exactly what is required.
Sometimes Photoshop is not available to the person receiving the images,
so if I send something that is seventeen times bigger than needed —and
perhaps in the wrong color mode, too—they have no way of dealing with
it themselves. Also, as I do not like to send images out without the appro-
priate calibration, it is a great help to be told what kind of process will be
used for final output.

If the final output method will be offset litho, we have to look a little
closer to figure out what the dpi value really needs to be. What kind of
paper is being used? If it is an uncoated paper, then the line-screen value
of the halftones probably does not need to be higher than 133lpi (Note:
that is “lpi”—lines per inch—not “dpi”), otherwise detail will be lost as the
dots spread into each other. If, however, you are printing on a coated pa-
per you can usually go straight up to 150lpi. Some magazine covers go as
high as 175 or even 200lpi, but this is less common. The smaller the dots
are, the more fiddly they are to print, and the more often the printer has
to stop the presses to clean things up. So, values higher than 150lpi are
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used only if they are considered necessary for the quality of the result. In
terms of visual effectiveness, most of us pretty much cannot see the dots
at 150lpi, anyway.

The rule of thumb is to double the line-screen value that you are going to
end up with and use that as the dpi at which you need the image. This is
where the magic number of 300dpi comes from—it is twice the line-
screen value of a halftone intended for printing on coated paper. If you
have the image at that resolution, then—so long as the physical size is
large enough—you are covered whether you end up printing on coated or
uncoated paper, because the actual line-screen of an image is applied by
the imagesetter printing the film. So it does not really matter if you have
the image at a slightly higher resolution than you eventually need. All it
means is that you merely have a little more detail available within the
digital image than you can actually reproduce. It will not be a problem.
The problem is when you have an image at a resolution that is too low,
and therefore you pick up less detail than you could potentially print.

Once you have decided on the correct resolution, you need to deal with
the size. Of course, it is quite likely that you will not know at the outset
what size you want a particular image to be. This happens to me all the
time. And, if I put very many high-resolution CMYK images into a page
layout, things start to slow down. If the project is a book, it may eventu-
ally mean that I have to sit and wait for the screen to redraw every time I
do anything at all, which is a serious state of affairs when a deadline
looms. Fortunately, there is a solution.

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Creating an Efficient Workflow

The first thing to do is to process and save all the images that will be
needed for the job at high resolution (300dpi is great) and in CMYK mode.
This should mean that they are all as large, or larger, than you will actu-
ally require. Once you begin the layout process you will not easily be able
to make any further adjustments to them, so make sure all that work has
already been done. Save them all into a single folder: I usually name it
“hi-res CMYK.” Create an empty folder adjacent to it called “lo-res RGB.”

In Photoshop, open one of the images and then choose Window > Actions
(fig. 8.1). Click on the Options button (at the top right of the window) and
choose New Action. In the New Action window that opens, name it “300
CMYK to 72 RGB” and click Record (fig. 8.2). Now, everything you do to the
open image will be recorded, so be careful!

Choose Image > Image Size and, in the window, make sure that the resolu-
tion is not linked to the width and height (see the Image Size window im-
ages in the previous chapter). If it is, check Resample Image in the lower
left corner. Resolution should then be unlinked from the other two.
Highlight the number in that field, 300, and change it to 72. Click OK, and
your image will appear to change size. That is not a problem. As far as a
page layout is concerned, it still has the same dimensions as before. Then,
choose Image > Mode and choose RGB (fig. 8.3). The image is now low-res
RGB, but is actually exactly the same physical size as the original in terms
of inches wide and tall, and so it will occupy exactly the same area in
InDesign as the original CMYK image.

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8.1 The Actions window.

8.2 The New Action window.

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8.3 The Image > Mode list.

Finally, close the open image but do not save it, or you will have just over-
written one of your high-resolution CMYK originals.

Now, still in Photoshop, choose File > Automate > Batch (fig. 8.4). This en-
ables you to automatically run the selected action on all the images in a
defined “source” location, and save the results in a “destination” location
—while you do something else.

The action you just created should appear at the top of the window; if not,
choose it from the list.

The Source should be set to Folder. Then click on Choose and locate the
high-res CMYK folder and select it. The “destination” should also be a
folder. Again, click Choose, find the low-res RGB folder, and select it.
Then, click OK. Photoshop will open each of the high-res CMYK images in
turn, run the action on it, and save the low-res RGB result in the destina-
tion folder.

The low-res RGB images should now be used to build your design in
InDesign. When it is completely finished, save the file and close it. Then,
move the low-res RGB images folder, and reopen the InDesign file—which
will warn you that the links to the source files are now broken, and sug-
gest that you use the Links window to fix things. Click OK, and the file will
open—apparently with all the images still in place. However, do not be

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misled: these are merely screen representations and are definitely not
good enough to print.

8.4 The Batch window in Photoshop.

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8.5 The Links window in InDesign showing the “missing” links.

Open the Links window, and you will see a red “missing link” icon oppo-
site all the images in the list. To activate the window, click once on the top
entry in the list (fig. 8.5), then click on the “relink” icon. This opens a file
tree allowing you to identify the current location of—not the low-res RGB
image, but the high-res CMYK image of the same name. Select the high-res

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image in the Source folder, click Open, and InDesign will find and update
the links to all the other images in the layout.

Then save the file, and make the PDF. This method means that you never
have to wait for the screen to redraw.

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Scanning Original Material

If you are scanning slides or prints in order to create the high-res CMYK
files, then, to determine the correct settings for the scanner, first figure
out the percentage of enlargement or reduction you need (I use a formula
based on “divide what you want by what you have” on a calculator), then
double the desired halftone line-screen value to get the dpi setting. Then
use that percentage and that dpi value as the scan settings for your image.

Incidentally, while scanners of amazing quality are now available at even

more amazing prices, it is worth checking up on the accompanying soft-
ware before buying, especially the kind of interface that is available if
you want to scan directly into Photoshop. Some scanning software aims
at the casual user rather than the professional, and will give you only a
few presets, rather than the range of settings you need. If you cannot en-
ter specific dpi and percentage scanning values, you would be better off
with a different scanner, however tempting the deal appears to be.

8.6 Left: not descreened at all. Center: descreened at 90lpi. Right: de-
screened at 150lpi.

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8.7 The RGB channels. The moiré pattern appears in the blue channel.

The CMYK channels. The moiré pattern appears in the yellow channel.

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Scanning Previously Printed Images

If you are sent an image that has been printed using the four-color
process and that you are now supposed to scan, you have two problems.
The first is copyright. Does the client have the right to use this image?
Check up. Otherwise, you may be liable.

The second problem is that all the correct screen angles for the CMYK col-
ors have already been taken (see Chapter 2). If you simply scan the print
again, the result will be a moiré pattern. This is because as your scanner
moves across the image, it captures whole rows of pixels at a time, each
one of which is called a “sample.” The number of samples per inch (SPI) is
therefore the same as the number of dots, or pixels, per inch that you
have specified. All these samples put together create a grid of pixels at a
new screen angle—hence the moiré.

In order to deal with this problem successfully, you have to start with the
actual scanning process. Good scanners have a descreening mode. If so,
there is a good chance of ending up with a decent-quality image with no
moiré. Descreening modes are often presented in terms such as “art mag-
azine,” “newsletter,” “newsprint,” “custom,” and so forth. These presets
refer to the density of the line screen in the original image. Selecting one
of these determines how much work your scanner will need to do in or-
der to overcome the possibility of a moiré. The line screen values they
usually represent are 150lpi for art magazine, 133 for newsletter, and 120
or below for newsprint.

If you know the exact line screen used to print your original, and if it is
not 150, 133, or 120lpi, use the “custom” option (if available) and type in
the value. If “custom” is not available, you will have to select whatever
seems closest to your image.

For uncoated paper the worldwide standard for line-screen value is usu-
ally 133, but sometimes 150lpi; for coated stock it is usually 150 but some-
times 175 or even 200lpi. To see an image with and without descreening,
see fig. 8.6.
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Sometimes, even if you have picked the correct lpi setting, the result will
still have a visible moiré. If this happens, try rescanning at a lower lpi set-
ting, which, as well as being faster, might also produce a better result. You
will probably lose a little of the fine detail, however.

After scanning, take a look at the individual channels both before and af-
ter converting it to CMYK.

While the moiré pattern is much reduced or even completely invisible on

the descreened image, something strange is happening within the indi-
vidual channels while it is still in RGB mode (see fig. 8.7). (Incidentally, to
see the information in a single channel, simply click on its name in the
Channels window.) The red looks better, and so does the green, but there
is still a strong moiré in the blue channel. Now look at the second set of
individual channels, which is how things look when the image is con-
verted into CMYK. As you can see, while the C, M, and K channels are
much improved, there is a strong moiré in the yellow—however, as previ-
ously discussed, the special quality of this color means we see the yellow
but we do not see the grid, and therefore the moiré it produces remains
invisible.

So the moiré in the blue channel in the RGB version becomes the moiré in
the yellow channel of the CMYK version—which means that the blue
moiré is just as invisible in the RGB image as the yellow moiré is in CMYK.
Yet blue is visible and the moiré appears to be quite dark and strong—so
why can it not be seen? The answer lies in the way the channels display
information in RGB and CMYK.

RGB is made of light, whereas CMYK tends to be made of pigment. So, a

dark area in a channel in a CMYK image indicates a lot of that color.
However, when something looks dark in a channel in an RGB image, it
means the color is weak there.

As the blue channel in an RGB image becomes the yellow channel in a

CMYK image, and as we cannot see the yellow moiré in the CMYK version,
we are also unable to see the blue moiré in RGB.

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Next time you look through a magazine, and especially in the “ads” sec-
tion, see if you can see any trapping problems. They’re extremely com-
mon but, with this chapter behind you, it’s a trap you won’t fall into.

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