Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Click on a queston to see the answer:
- 1)Who is Creativetorch?
- 2)What is FPO?
- 3)What is Print and Screen Resolution? (DPI vs PPI)
- 4)Can I use an image from the Web for Print?
- 5)My images are blurry when I print them, why?
- 6)What is Lorem Ipsum?
Answer:
Creativetorch.com creates images and designs for visual communications, home and small business marketing needs.
We have over 10 years of experience and have professionally designed for non-profit organizations, small business and corporations. We create designs for t-shirts, mugs, cards and promotional materials. We also design print materials such as posters, sell sheets, catalogs, tradeshow graphics as well as digital colateral such as eCatalogs, Facebook fan pages, widgets, web pages and websites.
Creativetorch.com offers pre-made designs on Cafepress.com and reserves the right to accept or deny any custom design work due to the scope of work or availability. Contact us for a free quote. Please give all the details you can for the quote (kind of project, size, colors, ideas, thoughts, budget) and allow up to 72 hours for us to crunch numbers.
We have over 10 years of experience and have professionally designed for non-profit organizations, small business and corporations. We create designs for t-shirts, mugs, cards and promotional materials. We also design print materials such as posters, sell sheets, catalogs, tradeshow graphics as well as digital colateral such as eCatalogs, Facebook fan pages, widgets, web pages and websites.
Creativetorch.com offers pre-made designs on Cafepress.com and reserves the right to accept or deny any custom design work due to the scope of work or availability. Contact us for a free quote. Please give all the details you can for the quote (kind of project, size, colors, ideas, thoughts, budget) and allow up to 72 hours for us to crunch numbers.
FPO means For Position Only and is used in design as an image placement holder. Designers use FPO in place of an image, artwork, graph, chart and any graphic element that is missing in the current design in progress. The FPO area represented a box that would be the same size and in the correct position for the content to be placed. FPO was used when artwork came in the form of photographs and other hardcopy material that had to be scanned. While the designer was waiting for the artwork to be scanned or placed into the layout, FPO would be placed as a holder so the layout could continue to be worked on even with missing materials. The same holds true in desktop publishing. The designer can place an FPO on the layout and contunie working on the design even with missing materials. Once the final artwork ready, the FPO is replaced with the correct graphic.
What is resolution?
Resolution is a measurement of the output quality of an image. The most common units to measure resolution include PPI (pixels per inch), DPI (dots per inch), and LPI (lines per inch).
When dealing with resolution the two most common aspects are for printing and for screens. Printing resolution refers to DPI, and digital resolution for screens refers to pixels.
Low resolution refers to a lower quaility image and high resolution refers to a higher quality image. When looking at a low quality image, it may appear blurry, uncrisp and may make pixels display in a more rough, jagged, and grainy way–resembeling sand. When looking at a high quality image, it may appear clear, crisp, and have a higher level of detail.
DPI (Dots per Inch) is used for printing. The more dots you have in an area (per inch), the more information or detail that area will have. This "information" is tiny little dots of ink or toner that make your image. Inkjet printing technology uses printer heads to transfer tiny ink dots onto the surface of paper, fabric, and other surfaces to create images and text. Laser printing technology uses laser light, electro-magnetic properties and heat to create images and text. Dye-Sublimation printing technology uses heat to transfer dye onto surfaces such as a plastics, paper, or fabric. Sublimation is a term used because the dye transitions between a solid and gas state without going through a liquid stage. This process creates a more continuous-tone and has the quaility of a photograph. Good quality printing usually requires 300 dots per inch. Most home computers do not require anything higher. Photo printing with professional printers can print in the range of 2800 dpi. The industry standard is 300 dpi as most paper and other materials to be printed on cannot support a higher resolution. Too many dots within a one inch area on paper will show no extra detail unless a specialty paper is used.
PPI (pixels per inch) or pixel density is used for computer displays, image scanners, and digital cameras. Computer screen show text and images as pixels. Each pixel is a tiny little dot on your screen with a 1 to 1 raitio. This means that if a 100 x 100 pixel image is on your screen, your screen is using 100 x 100 pixels to show that image. The standard pixel density or PPI is 72 pixels. That means that a 72 x 72 pixel image will display as a one-inch square in the screen. The total pixels on your screen can vary depending on the type of your screen and the settings you choose for your computer display/screen. Computer screen sizes can be 800 x 600 pixels, 1024 x768 pixels, 1280 x 800 pixels, or 1440 x 900 pixels. So, if an image that is 800 x 600 pixels with a pixel density of 72, it will completely fill a 800 x 600 screen.
PPI and DPI are mistakenly used interchageably... Pixels are used as a digital measurement and DPI is used for a printed measurement. Digital images can be converted from pixels into a DPI mesurment–to be printed. For example, a 100x100 pixel image that is to be printed in a one-inch square could be said to be a 100 dpi image. Futhermore, a 300x300 pixel image to be printed in a one-inch square could be said to be a 300 dpi image. With that said, a 1500 x 2100 pixel image printed as a 5x7 inch photograph would be said to be a 300 dpi image.
Resolution is a measurement of the output quality of an image. The most common units to measure resolution include PPI (pixels per inch), DPI (dots per inch), and LPI (lines per inch).
When dealing with resolution the two most common aspects are for printing and for screens. Printing resolution refers to DPI, and digital resolution for screens refers to pixels.
Low resolution refers to a lower quaility image and high resolution refers to a higher quality image. When looking at a low quality image, it may appear blurry, uncrisp and may make pixels display in a more rough, jagged, and grainy way–resembeling sand. When looking at a high quality image, it may appear clear, crisp, and have a higher level of detail.
DPI (Dots per Inch) is used for printing. The more dots you have in an area (per inch), the more information or detail that area will have. This "information" is tiny little dots of ink or toner that make your image. Inkjet printing technology uses printer heads to transfer tiny ink dots onto the surface of paper, fabric, and other surfaces to create images and text. Laser printing technology uses laser light, electro-magnetic properties and heat to create images and text. Dye-Sublimation printing technology uses heat to transfer dye onto surfaces such as a plastics, paper, or fabric. Sublimation is a term used because the dye transitions between a solid and gas state without going through a liquid stage. This process creates a more continuous-tone and has the quaility of a photograph. Good quality printing usually requires 300 dots per inch. Most home computers do not require anything higher. Photo printing with professional printers can print in the range of 2800 dpi. The industry standard is 300 dpi as most paper and other materials to be printed on cannot support a higher resolution. Too many dots within a one inch area on paper will show no extra detail unless a specialty paper is used.
PPI (pixels per inch) or pixel density is used for computer displays, image scanners, and digital cameras. Computer screen show text and images as pixels. Each pixel is a tiny little dot on your screen with a 1 to 1 raitio. This means that if a 100 x 100 pixel image is on your screen, your screen is using 100 x 100 pixels to show that image. The standard pixel density or PPI is 72 pixels. That means that a 72 x 72 pixel image will display as a one-inch square in the screen. The total pixels on your screen can vary depending on the type of your screen and the settings you choose for your computer display/screen. Computer screen sizes can be 800 x 600 pixels, 1024 x768 pixels, 1280 x 800 pixels, or 1440 x 900 pixels. So, if an image that is 800 x 600 pixels with a pixel density of 72, it will completely fill a 800 x 600 screen.
PPI and DPI are mistakenly used interchageably... Pixels are used as a digital measurement and DPI is used for a printed measurement. Digital images can be converted from pixels into a DPI mesurment–to be printed. For example, a 100x100 pixel image that is to be printed in a one-inch square could be said to be a 100 dpi image. Futhermore, a 300x300 pixel image to be printed in a one-inch square could be said to be a 300 dpi image. With that said, a 1500 x 2100 pixel image printed as a 5x7 inch photograph would be said to be a 300 dpi image.
Using web images for print
I would first reccomend reading question #3. Web images are measured differently than print measurements and are lower quality for print standards. Web images use an image size that is not high enough for good print quality. Printing a web page for personal use is fine, however, using a web image for a professional print may result in the image being a little fuzzy, pixelated or not crisp. There are ways to use a web image for a professional print using an image editor such as Photoshop, you can adjust the quality of the web image to be used for print, HOWEVER, the original web image must be of good enough quality to be able to be converted to a print image. Most GIF images will not have that capability. JPG and PNG images can be used, but remember that the larger the web image, the better chance that it can be converted and used as a print image.
I would first reccomend reading question #3. Web images are measured differently than print measurements and are lower quality for print standards. Web images use an image size that is not high enough for good print quality. Printing a web page for personal use is fine, however, using a web image for a professional print may result in the image being a little fuzzy, pixelated or not crisp. There are ways to use a web image for a professional print using an image editor such as Photoshop, you can adjust the quality of the web image to be used for print, HOWEVER, the original web image must be of good enough quality to be able to be converted to a print image. Most GIF images will not have that capability. JPG and PNG images can be used, but remember that the larger the web image, the better chance that it can be converted and used as a print image.
Blurry images?I would first try to look at the quaility of your images. If they were images from the web you are printing, refer to answers #3 and #4. Web images are lower quality than the quality needed for a clear, crisp print. If you resized the images in any way, that may have affected the image quality to make it blurry. Try to use the image in it's original size and crop as needed or resize in an image editor such as Gimp or Photoshop. If you are printing on non-traditional paper such as a canvas paper or a paper not compatible with your printer (high-gloss, special finish, certain recycled papers, etc) or if you are using a layout program such as InDesign or Quark Xpress, the image link may have been broken and the image can't be found... try to re-link the image or make sure the image isn't corrupt or in a wrong format (or quality) such as gif, bmp or png.
Lorem Ipsum
Lorem Ipsum is simply fake text to be placed into a work-in-progress design when you don't have any text to place into the design. Known as "Dummy Text", Lorem Ipsum has been used since around the 1500s. The "text" is actual text used by a cold-type print typesetter who used the type as a "filler". The text originated from classical Latin literature from 45 BC. When designing, filling a layout is important for a correct visual representation of the layout, that means text. If you have no text, Lorem Ipsum can fill that space.
The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Lorem Ipsum is simply fake text to be placed into a work-in-progress design when you don't have any text to place into the design. Known as "Dummy Text", Lorem Ipsum has been used since around the 1500s. The "text" is actual text used by a cold-type print typesetter who used the type as a "filler". The text originated from classical Latin literature from 45 BC. When designing, filling a layout is important for a correct visual representation of the layout, that means text. If you have no text, Lorem Ipsum can fill that space.
The standard Lorem Ipsum passage, used since the 1500s
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.