How to change the default 72 ppi to 300 ppi prior to exporting

[HelenMac]

We have:

an artboard - 300 px by 250 px.

We need:

to export the artboard as a jpeg and/or a png file with the same 300 px by 250 px with 300 ppi.

What we do now:

We export the artboard as a jpeg with 300 ppi.

Open it in Photoshop and see that the dimensions are 1251 px by 1043 px now.

We have to change the pixels back to the original 300 px by 250 px while keeping the 300ppi resolution.

My research:

from what I understood: Adobe Illustrator is defaulted to 72 ppi. You can see it by opening a New Document dialog – setting the document size to 72 pixels and then choosing Inches from the dropdown menu. If you put 72 pixels and switch to inches, it shows 1 in. That means there are 72 pixels per 1 inch (72ppi).

When we export the artboard as jpeg or png asking it to be 300 ppi without scaling it up (without loss of quality), it makes the pixel dimensions larger by 4.167 (300ppi/72ppi=4.167 round up to 4.17) resulting in 1251 px x 1043 px dimensions (300px * 4.17=1251px, 250px * 4.17=1043px).

For what I’ve researched so far, the way a lot of people fix the issue is going by inches x inches instead of pixels x pixels. In the case of 300 px x 250 px and 300 ppi it would be creating a new document with following dimensions 1 in x 0.833 in:

300 px / 300 ppi = 1 in

250 px / 300 ppi = 0.833 in

Which theoretically would bring us to the desired 300 px x 250 px with 300 ppi in Photoshop.

In practice, the numbers seem to differ as AI rounds it up a bit and results in a wrong size.

I’d like to find out if the default Illustrator 72 ppi can be changed to the 300 ppi before creating an artboard/exporting as jpeg so the pixels x pixels wouldn’t change with the desired 300 ppi and we wouldn’t need to use Photoshop to resize the image (for example, when creating a new document and entering 300 pixels width, then switching to inches, it would show 1 in - just like it does with the 72 pixels now).

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading into it and trying to help.

All the best!

[Monika Gause]

What you set up in the New document dialog box is the raster effects resolution. The AI file itself doesn't have a resolution.

When you want to keep pixel dimensions, export at 72 ppi and change resolution later. It doesn't matter anyway. It's just metadata.

[HelenMac]

Thank you, I believe I understand that. I'm looking for the way to skip the "change resolution later" step. That's the whole point.

[Monika Gause]

Then you have to set up a smaller file. You can then export it at 300 ppi.

But why do you need to do that at all? Correct pixel dimentsions should be sufficient.

[Ton Frederiks]

The problem with calculating the size of the Illustrator file to end up with a certain amount of pixels is that the Illustrator document may have dimensions that contain fractional pixels.

A 52,56 px X 30 px file will end up as 219 X 125 px but it will be more difficult to create a pixel perfect design.

Much simpler would be to create an Illustrator document at the correct pixel size, export at 72 ppi and create a Photoshop action that changes the image size to 300ppi resolution without resampling.

The action can be applied in batch to an entire folder of images.

[David_at_Summit]

I feel you. But, without an Illustrator hack, inches, as defined in Illustrator, are at a fixed relative scale of 72 pixels (72 ppi). This was based on the original Macintosh physical monitor resolution. That limitation is far too short-lived and old to still be lingering in software. Both modern and old monitors range from 96 ppi to 218 ppi (Retina). For some reason, Adobe design products lack the flexibility to include a conventionally adjustable pixel scale to suit modern needs. Designs created in inches/centimeters, for instance, should be able to include their own pixel scale, such as 300 or 600 ppi to match the end-point dpi of their print publisher. Ideally, designers should be able to set their own pixel scale for all new designs in addition to being able to adjust it on-the-fly.

One thought I just had, presuming you want to keep your original design with units set to real-world measurements (inches, centimeters, points, etc.): Create a seperate design file with units set to pixels and place a linked version of the each original design. Then, scale the linked image to match the desired ppi. Using this technique, any design changes will immediately be reflected at the appropriate ppi when exporting the file with units set to pixes. The same technique would also work in reverse. I hope this helps.

[CarlosCanto]

have you tried Asset Export or File->Export Selection.. or File->Export->Export for Screens...(they're all the same function, just different ways of getting there)?

there's an option to export by resolution