1 Correct answer
Open the file in Photoshop
Hit Ctrl + Alt + i (or go to Image > image Size)
Uncheck the Resample checkbox at the bottom so Width, Height and Resolution are all linked by lines
Bump the Resolution from 72 to 600 Pixels/Inch
This will greatly reduce the print size by essentially cramming 8 times the number of pixels into an inch of your print
You'll notice your image going from over 31" x 28" @ 72 to just 3.7" x 3.3" @ 600
Save As (high res print version of your image)
When you bring the image
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The picture on the left is in Photoshop at 20% and the right is in Illustrator at 43%.
1. As this picture is a tester for a possible childrens book case, the did not give an exact size, so I want it to be clear at around 8" by 7" or 11" by 10" range.
2. By pixelated I mean when I place the Ps file into Ai, it looks clear at 100% (but it is a big file). When I decrease the magnification view the image starts to get little jagged pixelated edges to the lines at around 66.66% to 50%, at 33% to 25% those jagged edges look terrible. If I toggle back to the same size (on screen) in Ps the picture looks very clear. I am just worried these people who want the picture will see my image smaller than 100% and it looks bad like that.
You may be right about them being clueless. I want the picture to be clear at around 8" by 7" or 11" by 10" range.
A few steps I took trying to get in the right direction were to modify the image size in Ps to 8 by 7.18 inches, changing the 72 ppi to 600 ppi. Then I placed this file into an Ai file, and went to effects tab / document raster effects settings, and changed the ppi to 600. As I mentioned in the reply to Test Screen Name above, when I place the Ps file into Ai, it looks clear at 100%. But when I decrease the magnification view the image starts to get little jagged pixelated edges to the lines at around 66.66% to 50%, at 33% to 25% those jagged edges look terrible. If I toggle back to the same size (on screen) in Ps the picture looks very clear. I am just worried these people who want the picture will see my image smaller than 100% and it looks bad like that.
Here's a comparison photo with the Ps file (view at 20%) on the left and the Ai file (43%) on the right.
You may have heard 300 dpi is industry standard for images. This is true for contone CT (photographs) images output at 150 lpi. You have linework LW, and for example we used to do LW logos at 2540 to meet the maximum quality of the film output (Res 12).
Your printer is asking for 600 dpi whcih is fine as the file gets so large at 2540 they are hard to work with, and childrens drawings do no need as much quality as a company logo scanned from RC paper.
Then you need to design your files at 600 dpi for the largest files size possible. Create a new filet this size and draw in
You should avoid upsampling whenever possible, as that will nto look as good as creating your art at the proper size. there.
The art style you posted could be better drawn in Illustrator instead. You can scale Illustrator vector art, and not worry about resolution as those file print at max quality since they are defined by paths and nto pixels.
I think your image will be just fine, using your current Photoshop file.
The kinds of colors, tints, and blends you're using might just as well remain a whole raster image in Photoshop.
Okay – granted, some publishers prefer a combination of a vector based illustration for all black lines, with a rasterised image for the subtle colouring underneath. Overlaying them in Illustrator indeed offers the best result: the vector-based blacks will be super-crisp (at the printer's resolution which might range from 600 to 3600 dpi), against the ordinarily screened color rasters at max 300 dpi.
See your example below.
This might be (a scan of) your original ink drawing.
This might be the underlying coloured fills.
So these two images (layered) are created separately and combined in Illustrator.
The result is razor sharp (vector-based) black line drawing, on top of the (pixelated) colors.
This 'double whammy' workflow takes much more steps to prepare and process, every time !
But of course, everything can become an efficient and effective routine after some practice.
In case you're willing and eager to give it a try, here are some thoughts on how to achieve it.
Is the original and purely black-and-white drawing a hand-drawn sketch, or did it start in Illustrator already ?
If it is hand-made, scan, then scan it and let Illustrator trace the image into (sheer black and white) shapes.
Try several options for accuracy in the Trace's Advanced Settings panel, to find the right style and precision.
Either leave it as a Trace Object (for tweaking settings later on) or Expand the whole enchilada into real paths.
Select this bunch of lines/paths/shapes and keep it safe on its own layer (you might as well lock it). Save the file.
Copy/Paste or Place the paths/file into Photoshop and color and fill all the parts below the black drawing layer.
Depending on your preferred workflow, you can now choose to delete or hide the black layer in Photoshop and place this Photoshop file back into Illustrator, below the original black layer. (Simply hiding the black layer in Photoshop will add a lot of extraneous data to the subsequent files, which isn't dangerous but might become a nuisance.) Or supply both images to the publisher, and let them do the combining. Maybe they prefer to tweak the color settings of the raster image, if they take pride in their work...
For your own use, you can also keep the pasted/placed black vector-based layer in Photoshop (it probably became a Smart Object layer), and finalise the whole illustration by saving it as a Photoshop PDF. The vector based laters will be retained ! But whatever you do, don't bring this file into InDesign, because then the whole file will become pixelated, losing its benefit.
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