Optimum Photoshop Image Size?

[Andy George]

Hi Brian,

Its pretty much in proportion to what you want to output and what you want to do with the image.

Say I have a 720×586 Pal comp. I know that I want to import an image and execute a push in AE from 100% to 200%.
For this instance I would need an image scaled to roughly 1440×1172 (OR (720×586)*2)

A push from 100% to 300% would require 2160×1758 image and so on.

DPI (dots per inch) has no relevance on a computer screen or Television.
Its a function of printing images to a specific size. And since you have no
control over your display size (think jumbotron in times square vs ipod display)
there is no way to calculate how many “dots per inch” you are going to need.

Unless you are printing, forget DPI entirely. After effects does not use it.

Andy
https://www.chiselindustries.com

[Brian Fisher]

OK, thanks for the input.

I hear what you say about dpi (yeah, I work mainly in print) but…

What I’m finding is that a 720×586 image created at 72dpi in Photoshop is only just over 1MB, so fairly easily animated in AE, but soft, blurry and poor quality. The same image but created at 300dpi is way sharper in AE but it’s now 20MB but impossible to animate and throws up the old “unable to allocate space for image buffer” error message. Especially when layered with a movie file.

Image sizes of the scale you are talking about would basically kill my Mac (specs below) and give me a nice beach ball to look at while AE keels over.

What I don’t understand is that the identical 20MB image – along with a bunch of others – is so easily animated in Final Cut Express, with a virtual instant preview at max resolution, on the same Mac.

I guess what I’m arriving at here is: If Final Cut Express can process these images smoothly, why can’t AE? I’m only doing simple rotations, after all.

Sorry if this all seems terribly newbie and basic, but I am determined to get a handle on this program, from the ground up. And that means nuts and bolts like this.

Thanks

Mac Pro, 10.5.7, 2×2.66GHz, 6GB RAM, GeForce 8800GT 512MB

[Fernando Mol]

A good starting point when somebody is going to send me an image for video is “at least 1000 pixels” (for SD video). But, as you can imagine, for somebody usually working on print that number can make no sense at all (I know it, I used to work on print).

This is a conversation I have had more than one time:

-1000 pixels? Width or eight?

-It doesn’t matter.

-Well, then it can be at 300 dpi?

-It doesn’t matter as long as the image is at least a 1000 px.

-But… can I send you the image at 300 dpi?

-Just don’t send me something you are using on the internet at 72 dpi.

-That’s what I mean, an image at 300 dpi.

-(deep breath) Send me whatever you have.

[Brian Fisher]

Aha. I think I just got it. Thanks for the input guys. It’s just weird having to realign my thinking on image dimensions. I’m still stumped as to why FCE seems so much faster than AE for identical processes, but that’s another post…

Mac Pro, 10.5.7, 2×2.66GHz, 6GB RAM, GeForce 8800GT 512MB