The Number of Pixels Matters
I recently received an e-mail from a reader of my CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book. He described an all too common problem that is easily remedied when you understand the importance of the number of pixels in an image. Yes, this is explained in the CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book, I'm guessing the person asking the question just hasn't made it to that chapter yet.
The user has created a similar title page in Lumapix FotoFusion and CorelDRAW X4. He was very happy with the printed quality from a JPEG file created in Lumapix and very disappointed with the quality of a JPEG file exported from CorelDRAW. To demonstrate the problem, the user sent me copies of each of the JPEG files. The file created in Lumapix FotoFusion was 2400 x 3600 pixels. The JPEG exported from CorelDRAW X4 was 576 x 792 pixels.
I'm sure you all see there is a huge difference in the two files simply by looking at the number of pixels. Let's assume that we wanted 300 dpi. The file from Lumapix FotoFusion would be 8 x 12 inches (2400/300 and 3600/300). The file exported from CorelDRAW would only be 1.92 x 2.64 inches. The really simple answer is to use a larger number of pixels when exporting from CorelDRAW. If the same number of pixels is used, I'm guessing the two files will be nearly identical.
The second problem I saw was that the user was using JPEG as the file format for the files even though the content was mostly text. I described a couple of months ago that JPG is NOT the Answer. That post described using JPEG for Web graphics, but the same thing applies when the graphic is going to be printed. Yes, this is also described in the CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book. The fact that the book answers so many common questions is why I recommend it to all CorelDRAW users. It is also important that users who get the book take the time to read the lessons and watch the movies included. Getting the most out of CorelDRAW requires an investment of time that will be easily repaid with increased productivity and also greatly increases the quality in situations like this one.
The user has created a similar title page in Lumapix FotoFusion and CorelDRAW X4. He was very happy with the printed quality from a JPEG file created in Lumapix and very disappointed with the quality of a JPEG file exported from CorelDRAW. To demonstrate the problem, the user sent me copies of each of the JPEG files. The file created in Lumapix FotoFusion was 2400 x 3600 pixels. The JPEG exported from CorelDRAW X4 was 576 x 792 pixels.
I'm sure you all see there is a huge difference in the two files simply by looking at the number of pixels. Let's assume that we wanted 300 dpi. The file from Lumapix FotoFusion would be 8 x 12 inches (2400/300 and 3600/300). The file exported from CorelDRAW would only be 1.92 x 2.64 inches. The really simple answer is to use a larger number of pixels when exporting from CorelDRAW. If the same number of pixels is used, I'm guessing the two files will be nearly identical.
The second problem I saw was that the user was using JPEG as the file format for the files even though the content was mostly text. I described a couple of months ago that JPG is NOT the Answer. That post described using JPEG for Web graphics, but the same thing applies when the graphic is going to be printed. Yes, this is also described in the CorelDRAW X4 Unleashed book. The fact that the book answers so many common questions is why I recommend it to all CorelDRAW users. It is also important that users who get the book take the time to read the lessons and watch the movies included. Getting the most out of CorelDRAW requires an investment of time that will be easily repaid with increased productivity and also greatly increases the quality in situations like this one.
Labels: thursday-tip
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