Exported PNG shows blurry text on web

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm trying to upload a holiday card to Shutterfly that I built in InDesign. The card includes photos and text. I tried exporting a PNG at 300 and 600 ppi, and the export looks great, but when I place it in Shutterfly, it looks really grainy. I resized my images in Photoshop to match what Shutterfly asks for. 

I'm not sure if I'm exporting correctly, and would really love some guidance on this. 

Thanks!

[Guest]

I should add that I've tried different options with anti-aliasing, exporting via JPG and PNG, and trashing my InDesign preferences. So far, everything has looked grainy or low-res on Shutterfly. My images definitely aren't low-res, but they look it. I think I'm missing a setting in a dialog box somewhere, but I'm not sure. Thanks for any help!

[Test Screen Name]

When creating text for the web only two rules

- PNG, not JPEG (not transparent PNG)

- Make it the exact target size in pixels

300 ppi, 72 ppi, 13 ppi, whatever you like. ppi is absolutely irrelevant for the web.

So, make it. Reopen the PNG and check in Photoshop.

Now check it in a browser. Size may double, if so resolution will diminish.

Now upload to service. If the quality goes down, perhaps your service isn't going to do text well.

[Test Screen Name]

Ah, ppi in InDesign might determine the size in pixels. Really, InDesign is a bad choice, and Illustrator is a poor choice, partly because it's awkward to design an exact size in pixels, which you MUST do. Use Photoshop. If you have a lot of work in INDD, export a PDF and export in Photoshop.

[Guest]

Thank you, I appreciate it. 

I am actually trying to prep for print since this will be a holiday card. I tried exporting a PDF into a Photoshop and editing from there, but that didn't look great either. The results still looked pretty grainy. Shutterfly can't provide their printing specs either so I'm not sure how I need to export, but I'm hoping I'm just not making any glaring errors on my end. 

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

Ok, I'm not entirely sure of your workflow but keep web and print heads entirely separate. If you are preparing for print, it doesn't matter a bean how it looks on the web. It has thrown away most of your info. If you're preparing for web AND print, these MUST be two different jobs, you cannot make one size to fit both.

Now, if you're preparing for print, I'm surprised you need to make PNG or JPEG.  But I looked at Shutterfly; really their job is Photobooks and photo cards. You submit photos. You add text in the web design process. If you want to design your own text, they might not be the service you need. 300 ppi is great for photos, and mediocre for small text. It may be OK for the quality expected for a greetings card though, and at the size you'd normally use. Be wary of trying to squeeze in a lot of body type, could be very poor.

[Guest]

I appreciate your help. Shutterfly is the only service I could find that offers custom card design and recipient addressing, so I went with them.

I'm not able to upload my artwork and then add a text box to my card within their website. I have to upload my own text. I could do those kind of customizations on other sites, but they don't allow recipient addressing. 

Hopefully there's more flexibility next year. Maybe!