Hey folks! Most of the work I do in Poser (or Bryce, Photoshop, whatever) is designed for eventual print, and as such is rendered fairly high resolution. I'd like to experiment with using some of the display styles (flat, cartoon, outline, etc.), but all I can get is just the tiny 72dpi screen preview. This looks cool on the web and on my monitor, but won't cut the mustard for actual print work (usually that needs to be 300-400dpi at actual physical, not pixel, dimensions). The JettBoy has sifted through the P4 manual and couldn't find any reference to saving a high resolution version of the displayed style. Can you help me out? Thanks in advance.

...you'll have to choose "New Window" to access the setting.

What type of printing are you doing? I recently had an 18" x 24" print made at Kinkos for a friend. I used the 72 dpi resolution that is standard, and simply cranked up the pixel rate to the highest setting (4090 or there-bout). The print came back looking incredibly sharp. I was definitely pleased (as was my friend). Try it once and see if it will work for your purposes? Might save you some headache (and render time). Good luck.

You mean the 72 dpi was good enough? You didn't have to increase it? Sharen

If you want a high res render of the display modes, you must render as a animation. Choose the resolution in the animationsettings and render the ani with rendersetting 'displaymode' as pict. Robert

sharen, he printed roughly at 200 dpi. 300 dpi is mostly used for rotational offset print. since lot of printing houses use ink jet technology for small editions, it doesn't have to be 300 dpi. it's always the best to ask the guys where you want to print your stuff what do they need.

Thanks for the info, that is interesting, do you think 72bpi is good enough for computer screens or should it be higher? Sharen

The first thing you shouldnt do is render a photo in poser with the built in JPG mode it really bites bad . Render in BMP then convert it to a jpg with your paint program . I like 92dpi better but most cant tell the difference on a monitor. Mostly the difference is file size. The more DPI the bigger the file size.

if you want to show it only on computer screens, 72 dpi is correct. sometimes, if you want to print it on very large scales, like 2 x 4 meters for fairs or such, it's even enough to render with 30 or 40 dpi or even less, since the audience doesn't come near it to see it pixelating.

We really need a FAQ on "Digital Pixels per Inch". In fact DPI is a myth. It's not relevant at all unless the image is to be printed on professional (and old!) production printing equipment. DPI is a measure of pixel size... not something monitors and video cards are interested in. If you render at a resolution of 1000x1000 pixels, it doesn't matter a jot what you set the DPI to. It will always be 1000x1000 pixels, and will look exactly the same on screen. The screen is fixed at a DPI calculateable from it's dimensions and resolution. DPI does not effect file size, resolution does. When you print the image, you or your software will resize the image to fit the paper... (Tygercubs printers will have done this) Printers are so advanced these days that DPI doesn't come into it. DPI values are stored in some image formats... so software developers think they should allow us access to changing or specifying the DPI. Makes an extra pretty box on the screen. Cool. Yep... if you're printing a 2M*4M banner on a budget, chances are the printing equipment might need a set DPI... but you can set this in your paint program before you send the image off. It doesn't need to be set in Poser. Really, the printers should be able to resize the pixel size of the image to fit the paper. So unless your printing house specifies a particular DPI... Enough with the DPI already! It doesn't matter! Just ignore it! H:))

300x300Pixel printed with 300dpi = printed picture 1x1 inch 300x300Pixel printed with 100dpi = printed picture 3x3 inch 600x600Pixel printed with 300dpi = printed picture 2x2 inch 600x600Pixel printed with 100dpi = printed picture 6x6 inch The important thing is, the needed printquality. If someone wants a picture, 12x12inch printed with 300dpi, you have to increase or decrease your image resolution to 3600x3600Pixel (+ some additional pixels for papercut if it,s for a cover or something like that) Robert

Thanks for the tips, kids. I'll have to try the "render as animation" trick that Robert suggested and see if that works. Hogwarden said: In fact DPI is a myth. It's not relevant at all unless the image is to be printed on professional (and old!) production printing equipment. Actually, I work in commercial printing and my personal opinion is that ink jet, sublimation, laser and all of the low-cost printing options are never, and won't ever be, anywhere near as good as offset press. True, it is an old method of printing, but it's still the best there is (unless you count the more modern digital presses. They are great but just as, if not more, expensive than traditional offset). I'm just glad I get my press work done on the cheap.

Yeah... "render as animation" is the answer to your question! Sorry about the pseodo-rant! Just a personal bug-bear. Generally, most of us are after the best possible print quality we can get... so that pushes our required DPI up. My personal experience is mainly from my work in the electronics industry... when I send a drawing of a label off to various printers to get costings, they will re-size the image file I send to fit the dimensions I specify, and replicate across the page as required. But this ain't art... and I agree that the best results will come from the best (not latest) design... hell. I'm a serious vinyl freak! I suppose what I'm trying to say is... DPI don't matter a jot unless you intend to get the image professionally printed. Go for the highest XY pixel resolution you can, and adjust the DPI later to get the image size you want and the DPI the printing house needs. Many people think that altering the DPI ("resolution" in the Poser render window) will give a different result to the render, and this isn't the case. The image will be identical, and the file size will be identical. You should alter the Width and Height of the image to change it's size. H:))

Not to hijack the thread?!? Good luck to the Jettboy with his preview renders! H:)

JettBoy, When you go under "make movie" to get to those settings, be sure that you have limited your animation to 1 frame. Rendering 30 frames at several thousands of pixels each will take time, even in cartoon mode. ;^) As for the other point about DPI... "dots per inch" is vital in printing art. I had 23 pieces printed (pen & ink, watercolor) and sold them for 16 years at F&SF conventions, as well as working professionally doing illustrations and covers and such. This gives me some background. If image quality matters to your client, it ought to matter to you. With today's digital delivery, a client may specify the image size in pixels: my last CD cover was 1425 X 1425. If you get a nice clean spec, smile and be thankful. You can decide at time of printing to diminish quality by reducing settings... however you can never satisfactorily add missing data. For this reason I fervently second the point above about not working in jpgs. In order to compress the image, the details are smeared and colors lost. This can never be regained. There are reasons for saving as a .jpg when you are done (web broadcast is a good example), but always save a copy in your non-lossy working format (tiffs or pngs or even bmps). If it is worth your time to do right, it is worth your time to preserve it! Carolly

DPI is important on the output end, Carolly, definitely for some things. But don't confuse that for him with DPI in Poser (or Bryce for that matter). The DPI number for these renders is absolutely meaningless. The only thing that matters here is pixel count. If you know your final has to be in inches or something instead of pixels. Figure your inches x DPI requested to get the pixel count for the render. Poser pays no attention at all to the DPI..it just puts the number in the file and it can be changed in your image editor.