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A
Anonymous
March 17, 2013
Answered

Placed image in illustrator is the wrong size even though the original was sized in photoshop

  • March 17, 2013
  • 2 replies
  • 44855 views

Hi when i size an image in photoshop and then 'place' it in illustrator the 'placed' image is way smaller in illustrator than in photoshop.

To give an example I just created a photoshop canvas of 900px x 900px with a resolution of 300ppi and filled it with a red colour. I then saved this image as a jpeg so the jpeg had a dimension of 900px x 900px.

I then opened an illustrator document setup to 900px x 900px at 300ppi and 'placed' the red jpeg I had just created in photoshop into illustrator.

Now I would expect the 'placed' jpeg to cover the entire artboard in illustrator because the jpeg is 900px x 900px and so is the artboard. However what actually happens is the 'placed' image appears but is over four times smaller in illustrator!! In itself this isn't a problem but then when I scale it up to the size I want e.g. 900px x 900px, the resolution starts to decrease and do so drastically!

How can I solve this problem as I want to size a photo and 'place' it into illustartor at the correct size and at 300dpi so that I can print it!

Please help! Thanks in advance!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jacob Bugge

Hi Jacob,

Ok, I've chosen an image that is 3508px x 2631px and is 300ppi.

I've opened a new artboard sized at the above size and placed the image into the artboard.

Going to the transform panel it shows that the placed image is 841.92px x 631.44px. and says that at this size it is 300ppi. These figures, when multipled by 72 become 60618.24 and 45463.68 so nothing like what I want them to be. However when divided by 24 and multiplied by 100 they become the correct 3508 x 2631. So the placed image is effectively 24% of the size I want it to be and at this smaller size it is 300ppi. However...

Once I resize it to 3508px x 2631px using the transform panel the resulting image is showing as 72ppi in the documnet info panel! Even though the original image is 300ppi at these dimensions! I just can't work out why?!?


mrplod,

Ah, now I know what you mean.

Illy basically works in points, 1 point = 1/72 inch, and the unit pixel (which you can choose instead of points, inches, etc) is set to the same value, 1/72 inch. This ambiguity is part of the difficulty in grasping all this.

I've chosen an image that is 3508px x 2631px and is 300ppi.

An image that is 3508px x 2631px is just that: this is the pixel size, meaning that it is made of 3508 x 2631 = 9,229,548 pixels (small squares), each of which may have its own colour, no more, no less.

This image can be represented at any size in any application, and that size will determine its resolution in PPI (Pixels Per Inch). If you divide the size by 300 to get a resolution of 300 PPI you will get 11.693 x 8.77 inches = 841.92 x 631.44 points/pixels (understood as the unit 1/72 inch).

This means that if you want the image to have a resolution of at least 300 PPI you cannot make it larger than 11.693 x 8.77 inches = 841.92 x 631.44 points/pixels (pixels as units in Illy).

If you want a larger image at 300 PPI you will have to start with a larger original image.

An image fitting an Artboard of 900 x 900 points/pixels = 12.5 x 12.5 inch at 300 PPI will have to be 3750 x 3750 pixels (300*12.5 = 3750).

Are you sure that is the actual size of the red square you made in Photoshop? If so, I have no clue why it shows up the way it does in Illy.

Edit:

I just reread this:

I then saved this image as a jpeg so the jpeg had a dimension of 900px x 900px

When you export as a JPEG, you can set a resolution, but you can also just save it at an actual pixel size (as in Save for Web & Devices) such as  900 x 900 pixels. Maybe that is where things go wrong.

2 replies

Steve Fairbairn
Steve Fairbairn
Inspiring
September 17, 2014

See this thread: Trouble with the Place feature particularly post #6.

Larry G. Schneider
Community Expert
Larry G. SchneiderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
March 17, 2013

AI always assumes that raster images are 72 ppi so a raster at 300 ppi is shown in AI at 24%. Check the resolution in the Document Info window

    A
    Anonymous
    March 17, 2013

    Thank you, but that's slightly confused me, perhaps you could explain...

    On my understanding if AI thought a raster image was 72ppi and that image had 900px wouldn't Ai show it as a bigger image - eg. 900px at 300ppi would be 3inches but 900px at 72ppi would be 12.5inches?

    Either way if AI does indeed assume a raster image is 72ppi and this means that it is shown at 24% how can a photo be sized in photoshop and then placed in illustrator at the correct size?

    Do you have to establish the size you need it to be in illustrator first, then divide this by 24 and multiply the answer by 100 to get the size the photoshop image needs to be???

    Oh and I've just checked the document info window as you suggest and the image that is four times smaller than expected in illustrator is saying it is 300ppi at that small size, so when i increase the size its resolution decreases!

      Jacob Bugge
      Community Expert
      Jacob BuggeCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      March 17, 2013

      mrplod,

      It all sounds rather odd, but you may just:

      1) File>Place the image in a suitable document, which may be in RGB Color Mode and with points/pixels as the unit (you may link to it instead of embedding it to keep the file size small),

      2) Resize the image to the desired size by changing the W or H value in the Transform panel, and move the image to have its corner at X=Y=0 and fit into the Artboard.

      Illy just presents the image as it is without resampling, whichever size you give it, the absolute size in pixels x pixels will remain the same.

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