Illustrator is resampling 300 dpi images to 72 dpi upon importing.

What I'm experiencing is that Illustrator is ignoring the resolution of JPGs and importing JPGs ONLY at 72 ppi, regardless of what the resolution is in Photoshop.

I am having a similar problem importing images into Quark Xpress.

My image is 425 x 637 pixels, and is 1.4" x 2.1" at 300 dpi when I save it in Photoshop.

On my MAC, it imports as a 1.4" x 2.1" image. Quark usage confirms it is a 300 dpi image.

If I open it in Illustrator on my PC, it comes in as a 1.4" x 2.1" image. Just as I would expect.

It imports into Quark Xpress on my PC as a 5.903" x 8.847" image at 72 dpi!! Quark usage says it is a 72 dpi image!

It makes no sense to me!

... illustrator started resampling all of my high-res images to 72 dpi upon opening.

Illustrator does not resample your image upon opening. What specifically do you mean by "opening"? Are you launching Illustrator and then using the File>Open command to "open" a raster image? If so, what file format is the raster image and what program created it?

I get a bounding box of 877 x 591

You get a bounding box of 877 x 591 what? Pixels? Are you refering to dimensions according to Illustrator's rulers? According to Illustrator's dimension fields in the Transform palette? Is the Unit of Measure in your Illustrator file set to Pixels?

... the image is floating within that box at (what I'm guessing is around a 72 resolution) 213 x 142 pixels.

Again, where are you seeing the 213 x 142 values? What "box" are you refering to? When you use File>Open to "open" a raster image, Illustrator by default just creates an Artboard the size of the raster image. Illustrator does not create a "container" box or clipping path in which to contain the raster image. The raster image is a free-floating object. It has a bounding box, but that is just an interface element for selecting and scaling the object.

If I save the file out at 72 dpi

Save what file? What format?

- the image pulls up the right size in illustrator

Pulls up? What exactly (step by step; command by command, using the terminology of the program) are you doing?

- it's just any image file that's a higher res than 72.

Read on....

1. Select an image.

2. Open the Document Info palette.

3. From the Document Info palette's flyout menu, turn on Selection Only and either Embedded Images or Linked Images (depending on whether the selected image is embedded or linked).

The Document Info palette will now show the "size" of the selected image in terms of actual pixels (n pixels horizontal x n pixels vertical). That is what you are primarily concerned about.

PPI is nothing but a scaling factor. So the effective PPI will vary, depending on the physical dimensions to which the image is scaled. Scale the image on the page, and the PPI will change.

There is a difference between resampling and merely resizing a raster image. Resampling actually changes the number of pixels, and is therefore destructive. Resizing does not change the number of pixels, and therefore is not destructive.

When you have Illustrator's rulers set to "Pixels" the rulers do not refer to the actual pixels in an image on the page. Illustrator's rulers reflect physical measure, and "Pixels" is not a unit of physical measure. When Illustrator's rulers are set to "PIxels", they are really set to Points (1/72 inch). So you cannot think of Illustrator's "Pixels" ruler as having anything at all to do with the PPI (Pixels Per INCH) of a raster image on the page, except in the special case in which the raster image happens to already be scaled to an effective PPI of 72.

In other words, if you insist on trying to think of Illustrator's "Pixels" rulers as an indication of raster image scale (PPI), you would have to think of the rulers as indicating "PPP"—actual-raster-image-Pixels Per Illustrator-fake-"Pixels"; which of course is ridiculous.

If you import a raster image file which does not contain a scale value, Illustrator simply by default scales the image to 72 PPI. Again, this is not resampling the image.

If you import a raster image file which does contain a scale value, Illustrator scales the raster image to that PPI.

Either way, the image contains the same number of pixels.

All of this chronic confusion stems from Illustrator's (and other's) silly interface that pretends "pixels" is a legitimate unit of measure for a rulers interface that is designed to represent real-world, linear measure. However, I am not aware of any changes in the way raster images are imported in recent versions. So if something is actually happening differently from the way it has happened "for eight years", you need to be specific about versions, steps, file formats, etc.

JET

cfengland1 wrote: ... HOWEVER, the image is floating within that box at (what I'm guessing is around a 72 resolution) 213 x 142 pixels...

You don't have to guess, select the image and look at the control bar. This is an example with a JPG file opened with Illustrator:

The important thing to understand is that 1 inch on the ruler in Illustrator is always 72 ppi for on screen display (not printing) purposes.

Your image in Illustrator will remain with the same ppi (300 in your case) and the same absolute spatial size (2.923 x 1.97 inches in your case) but its pixel dimensions will be displayed on the ruler and all transform controls as 72 pixels per inch. So the confusing part is that there are two kinds of ppi in Illustrator. One is the image's ppi shown on the control bar which will used for printing and the other is ruler's ppi which will be used for displaying the pixel dimensions on the ruler, transform controls, and when you use Save for the web.

If you want your images to be consistent in Illustrator and the other programs like Photoshop always use 72 ppi in all programs.

Sure I can explain it a 877x591 pixel image that is 300 ppi will display in a print document as smaller dimensional image than a 877x591 pixel image at 72 ppi.

The important part here is to remember the ppi and what that stands for ppi=pixels per inch so 877 ÷ 72 = 12.1805 "  877 ÷ 300 = 2.923 " see Illustrator is seeing your file in relatiobnship to inches or actually points and picas since it was developed for print. If you are workjing with pixels in Illustrator for web or video I suggest you work in pixel dimensions and at 72 ppi if you understand what I just wrote then you can later figure out (for video) how to up the resloution for a highe definition video out put.

I suggest though at the moment work at 72 ppi. Higher resolution video is another story.