Rescaling the image that says 72 PPI of value but shows a much bigger image instead

[elena.bubeeva]

Hi guys, just got a trial subscription for InDesign 2017. So I am walking through all tutorials and supporting materials now. Just faced some issues with graphics as I am a complete beginner here. So if I want to incorporate images outside of InDesign (my own Canon-made pictures) into the programme's frame how can I resize/rescale them so as the original format stays? Although the incorporated image shows the value of 72 PPI, the actual physical dimension is much bigger and I only see the middle part of the original image. Thanks!

[Derek Cross]

Select the image frame and then select: Object > Fitting > Fit Frame Proportionally (or Fit Content Proportionally). There are more options than this, but this will get you started. Also check out the Links panel and see what the Effective PPI is, which for printing, should be around 200 to 300 PPI.

[elena.bubeeva]

That helps! Thanks, Derek.

So in my test File I created three columns that should contain text and two images. One of the images gives 1635 as effective PPI, is it too much?

[Derek Cross]

It's overkill, but it'll be OK.

You normally resize pics in Photoshop to roughly the size you want them in InDesign.

[elena.bubeeva]

Aha! I saw people were mentioning similar things ... so I guess now I just need to jump into a new discussion around Photoshop   However, I already have an issue there, too. As I signed up for a trial period today and tried to open an image discussed before, the programme just showed the following message "Could not complete your request because the file was not found". Might it be a part of your expertise, too, Derek?

[Derek Cross]

Presumably your image is a JPG or similar. Do you know where it's saved?

[elena.bubeeva]

It's indeed JPG and it all saved in a folder on my desktop.

[elena.bubeeva]

Hi guys,

It is me again. Can anyone please help me out? So I just tried to Publish Online a two-page document. Although the process is running, in the end I get a black screen with no content on it.

Please help.

[Jongware]

elena.bubeeva  wrote

... Although the incorporated image shows the value of 72 PPI, the actual physical dimension is much bigger and I only see the middle part of the original image. ...

Welcome to the world of PPI. Do note that your "actual physical dimension" is a troublesome term! As you see, "the" size in PPI does not tell you anything. If you have exclusively seen/worked with web browsers so far: sure, there is something like a "100%" view in web browsers, but only for images that are shown at 100%. Now usually web page designers try to make their pages as small as possible (well … I am only guessing here. This used to be the norm anyway...) and so they saw no point in uploading a bigger image, only to scale it down for viewing.

(Except for some obvious exceptions, such as an image which is too large to display conveniently and of which it's clearly expected that you, the reader, always will want to zoom in on.)

With InDesign, however, you don't work "with" a screen resolution. You design on a screen (it'd be clumsy without), but all measurements are in "real world" units and not tied to your particular image scale+document zoom+screen resolution. With InDesign, you can zoom in and out while designing, but you will see the Effective PPI of an image will not change because you are designing for a certain size.

As Derek says, the only value you should be interested in is the Effective PPI, which is the PPI of that image when printed at the scale that you scaled it to. The Actual PPI value shown is practically useless (unless you always place all of your images only at 100% -- but still, the value shown for Actual PPI would always be the same for Effective PPI).