JPG / saturation question

[Colin]

This may be a stupid question, but here goes:

Let's say I'm going to make some small contour-cut decals (say 2" x 4") and it is comprised of a nice JPG image. When imported into CorelDraw, the JPG image is a relatively big one, and is much, much larger than the 2" x 4" decal. If I simply click on the JPG and grab the corner node and reduce it to the decal size, will there be any printing issues like oversaturation etc, or is that perfectly ok to do?

Or is it always best to reduce the image in terms of it's pixel size in Photoshop first, so that it fits the decal size you're making?


Thanks.

 

[d fleming]

Shrink and print.

 

[rfulford]

As long as your resolution is pretty close to the target, you should be fine. Only in cases of extremely oversized images have I seen any problem with this. I once had a client submit an 8"x10" image of a brick building at 600 ppi that occupied a 1"x2" area of a brochure. The image when screened actually looked low res.

 

[bob]

This may be a stupid question, but here goes:

Let's say I'm going to make some small contour-cut decals (say 2" x 4") and it is comprised of a nice JPG image. When imported into CorelDraw, the JPG image is a relatively big one, and is much, much larger than the 2" x 4" decal. If I simply click on the JPG and grab the corner node and reduce it to the decal size, will there be any printing issues like oversaturation etc, or is that perfectly ok to do?

Or is it always best to reduce the image in terms of it's pixel size in Photoshop first, so that it fits the decal size you're making?


Thanks.

Grab a corner and shrink it. Then right click on it, select 'Properties', and select, if memory serves, the right-most tab on the properties dialog to see what the resultant resolution might be. If its something you can live with, leave it. If it's too high*, select Bitmaps->Convert to Bitmap... and specify RGB** and whatever resolution you want.


*you should always try to print at four times the resolution of a bitmap. Thus is you're printing at 720dpi you want the image ot be ~150ppi. Printing at four times the image resolution yields a satisfying number of colors per image pixel. On the order of 4^16 assuming a CMYK printer.

**RGB because everything you do should be in RGB. Let the RIP sort it out for CMYK, it does a far better job than any other mechanism you have and, contrary to folklore, every time you open a CMYK image into an RGB world and subsequently re-save it as CMYK it can and most likely will be subject to color shift.

 

[Colin]

Awesome; thanks.