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Question

InDesign Document Setup and Image Resolution

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
May 17, 2019
9 replies
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Hi,

I am creating a standard screen use PDF file in InDesign.

Whenever I create a new document at a resolution of 1280x800 and place an image that was created in Photoshop to the same resolution of 1280x800 @ 72ppi, the placed image has a size of 640x400 with an Actual ppi of 72 and an effective ppi of 144.

I want this image to be full-screen so I scale the image up to fill the canvas but it becomes badly blurred and pixelated. (The info panel says it now has an Actual ppi of 72 and an effective ppi of 72.) Note: I have all the display settings for the document and the specific image(s) to be High-Quality Display.

Why is the placed image not coming in at the correct 1280x800 resolution of the document and why the loss in image quality when scaling to a matching document size.

Finally, when I use the Zoom Tool to set the view to be Actual Size it sets the view to be larger than 1280x800.

Thanks,

Eoin

This topic has been closed for replies.

Derek Cross

Brainiac

I gave up on this after a while — at the beginning I asked the OP twice what s/he wanted the final output to be and I never received an answer - and that’s why we’ve been going around in circles with mentions of pixels, PDFs, ePubs, Photoshop, InDesign, screen sizes, resolutions, tablets and more.

Presumably that’s why Bob stated he thought the OP was overthinking this project!

EoinWinstonAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Derek,

Sorry, I did indeed neglect to address the second part of your initial reply. I did respond about the intended use in post #18 in response to Bob's reply about the intended use. However just to note, the first line in my post was:

"I am creating a standard screen use PDF file in InDesign."

Thanks,

Eoin

EoinWinstonAuthor

Known Participant

However just to note, the first line in my post was:
"I am creating a standard screen use PDF file in InDesign."

The important bit of information came later—the PDF will not be printed (it's ok to use pixel units), and ideally the image quality needs to work on (any?) iPad.

If that's the case, the simple answer is set the document’s width to the largest iPad‘s pixel width (2732px) and keep the placed images’ Effective res at a minimum of 72ppi. If you want a client on the largest iPad to be able to zoom in on an image and keep a high quality, then the Effective res should be higher than 72ppi. When making that decision, you have to consider PDF's compressed file size vs. the audiences bandwidth.

Just to note:

For anyone who has a similar issue - from what I have tested, bigger is better. When I place a 1024 x 768 px image into an iPad (1024 x 768 px) preset template the image is very badly pixelated (when viewed in InDesign @ actual pixels and in the exported PDF), but when I adopted a larger resolution template of 2048x1536 the overall quality was better than before on all platforms (iPad and PC screens) The compromise being file size and making sure the view settings at PDF export were set to Fit Height so the starting view for the client on PC screens was already set to show the full page.

T

Test Screen Name

Brainiac

Yes, it will probably be full screen on iOS. But that doesn't mean it will be usable by a human with ordinary eyesight. They will need to zoom unless it is a very simple page with big elements on it. That same page will be a major annoyance to people on a computer.

Bottom line, if you want to be responsive, use a responsive format. HTML can do a great job of this. Nothing is going to be marvellous without reformatting on screens from a couple of inches to over a yard.

T

Test Screen Name

Brainiac

Rob, the document size is always in inches in InDesign, and always in inches in Acrobat: pixel size is useless and confusing when designing InDesign PDFs.

rob day

Brainiac

Rob, the document size is always in inches in InDesign, and always in inches in Acrobat: pixel size is useless and confusing when designing InDesign PDFs.

iOS and OSX browsers don’t consider the print output dimensions when displaying PDFs. Here Firefox is displaying 37.9 x 28.4 the same as 8.5 x 11, and if I print the larger version from the browser it will simply be fit to the Page Size.

T

Test Screen Name

Brainiac

You can't control things. Why would anyone view PDFs full screen on a 32 inch monitor? And someone with a tiny phone will have to zoom in just like all other PDFs.

Those images you are looking at... what are your InDesign screen quality settings? And what are your PDF export settings? And, how do you save it from Photoshop and how to you get it into InDesign?

rob day

Brainiac

Why would anyone view PDFs full screen on a 32 inch monitor?

If the target audience is using iOS devices, Safari is going to fit the PDF into the available screen space. It doesn‘t matter if the exported width dimension is 11" or 37", the PDF is going to be responsive and dynamically resize when it is viewed in an iOS browser

BobLevine

Brainiac

While it will resize, PDFs are not responsive in the true sense of the word. Text is not going to reflow.

T

Test Screen Name

Brainiac

The pixel unit may be convenient, but from the number of questions of people who are completely stuck, deep into a complicated workflow, it isn't easy. This affects both InDesign and (more commonly) Illustrator users who are otherwise quite comfortable with the app.

To make it actually easy, it might work if the NEW and EXPORT functions were linked, and BOTH allowed a resolution, which was preserved. (Of course, override possible after suitable warnings). The NEW function would set a size using the resolution and size in pixels. The resolution value (ppi) might usefully be greyed out if the measurement is not pixels.

BobLevine

Brainiac

The only time I use pixels is when I’m targeting a device. I do quite a bit of work using in5 these days which does a fabulous job of exporting HTML for use in things such as tradeshow kiosks. It’s as close to the old DPS stuff as I’ve found.

Beyond that…I wouldn’t even think about, especially for PDF.

rob day

Brainiac

The only time I use pixels is when I’m targeting a device.

That's what the OP is doing.

Alexandre Becquet

Brainiac

Hello, just trying with a PSD file and everything working fine.

Maybe reset the preferences.

R

Randy Hagan

Inspiring

My suspicion is that it lies in the PDF export settings you're using.

Default PDF Distiller settings for [Smallest File Size] is 100 ppi for color images. Exporting an Interactive PDF from InDesign automatically uses lossy compression to 72 ppi. If you change those settings to not compress your InDesign output to PDF, I believe you can sidestep your problem and get the results you're looking for.

Good luck,

Randy.

rob day

Brainiac

Whenever I create a new document at a resolution of 1280x800

InDesign documents and pages have no resolution—a page is a vector object.

There is a static Pixel measurement unit. If you set your rulers to Pixels, 1 pixel equals 1/72". If you change the Pixel ruler units to inches, your 1280px x 800px page will measure as 17.778" x 11.111" (1280/72=17.778).

The ruler units (Pixels, Inches, Millimeters, etc.) have no relationship to the pixel per inch resolution of placed images. Placed image resolution can be anything—the Effective resolution listed in the Links panel is the scaled output resolution, while the Actual resolution is the image’s saved resolution with no scaling.

EoinWinstonAuthor

Known Participant

Hi Rob,

Thanks for that,

You mentioned: "InDesign documents and pages have no resolution"

Here is what I meant by the InDesign document being at 1280 x 800 px dimension:

When creating the new document I meant Width-Height I set in the dialogue window. I presumed that if I placed an image that is 1280 x 800 px in to this document that the image would fill the document without the need to scale. The image places @ 50% scale and when I scale it to fit the document width/height it become blurred/pixelated. Every/Any image I place.

Thanks for the help,

Eoin

rob day

Brainiac

Here is what I meant by the InDesign document being at 1280 x 800 px dimension:

A placed image's pixel dimensions are not used for its scale relative to the page—It's the image’s output dimensions that matters.

The print output dimensions of your 1280px x 800 px InDesign page would be 17.778" x 11.111", so if you are placing an image that you expect to fill the page, its dimensions would also have to be 17.778" x 11.111".

Your image could have a higher resolution at the same 17.778" x 11.111" output dimension, but its pixel dimensions would have to change. You can see that using Photoshop’s Image Size dialog:

17.778" x 11.111" at 72ppi (1280 px x 800 px)