Moho Forum

I recently made a logo for a company at 1080/720 for them to make stickers. The guy making the stickers says they need to be 300 dpi but Moho renders at 72 dpi. I redid the image via PS at 300 dpi and resaved them, is that what want?

How large do they need to be printed? Size in inches x 300 gives you the necessary amount in pixels.

Resaving in PS is not correct because it only adds random pixels to match the request. Result may be good but it's not a very professional workflow.
PPI means pixel per inch. I know you wrote dpi but it's a common mistake to confuse them and actually they're very different, in fact dpi (dots per inch) is the printer resolution. So, Moho renders at 72PPI because it's the standard screen resolution but when you work for printing purposes things are different. You need a more dense image to obtain high quality result otherwise you will obtain a pixelated image. 300 ppi is a professional standard, but this is valid if the native document is in inches or cm that are real dimensions. The resolution in PPI alone doesn't mean you have high quality or not. For example if I have a 20x20 pixel image at 300 ppi and another one at 72, the quality of the image is the same because the size in pixels is the same. The resolution gives extra informations on how to read the image. If you ever worked with publishing softwares (indesign) you can understand how it works: If you add the 300 ppi image to the document, the size in inches will be smaller but higher in quality, if you add the 72ppi image the size in inches will be higher but lower in quality.
You can quickly obtain the amount of pixel for an high quality image by converting an empty ps file: let's say your sticker is 5x5 inches. Open a ps file and set up the resolution at 300. Now change the dimension from inches to pixel. This is your size to use in moho. Moho will export at 72 obiouvsly but the file will be equivalent to high quality when printed at the specified dimension. Now if you want you can open the image in ps and convert the resolution at 300 but if the company knows how print works it is an unnecessary step.

When I hear "logo" I presume it is something graphical and looking close to the stamp. If so, is it not the easiest way to provide an exported svg?
It largely depends on what kind of deal you`ve made with those guys but vector/svg file would be the best solution for printing.

Maestral wrote:When I hear "logo" I presume it is something graphical and looking close to the stamp. If so, is it not the easiest way to provide an exported svg?
It largely depends on what kind of deal you`ve made with those guys but vector/svg file would be the best solution for printing.

It is probably the simplest way, but often when exporting to svg something goes wrong(paths, gradients etc.) and you have to adjust it manually. Considering most printing services use adobe illustrator for vector graphics, and assuming that sbtamu don't use the software it's a bit risky cause he can't verify. He could try to handle it in inkscape. I don't use it anymore but, maybe in this case, after exporting to svg would be better to open the svg file on it, check if everything is ok and then export to eps which is a preferable exchange format.

dpi is irrelevant in Moho. What you want to do is make sure to render the project with the same number of pixels you would have in your final 300 dpi version.

For example, if the image you need has be 8.5 x 11 @ 300 dpi, then you need to set your Moho project size to 2550 x 3300. (In other words, (8.5 x 300) x (11 x 300))

The dpi can be set after you've rendered the image from Moho and imported it to an image editing program like Photoshop.

Open the Moho render in, for example, Photoshop, and open the Image Size panel. The default settings should read 35.417 x 45.833 inches at 72 pixels/inch. The first thing you do, and this is very important, is disable Resample. Now set the Resolution to 300. The image's size should now read 8.5 x 11 inches. If you change the labels to show pixels or points , it should read 2550 x 3300, the same settings from Moho. So the result will be a 2550 x 3300 or 8.5 x 11 inch image at 300 dpi. With Resample disabled, no new pixels are created or removed.

Now save the file as a PSD or whatever it is your client requires. Be aware that not all image formats support specific dpi settings but, tbh, it really doesn't matter in most cases because the dpi for the image can be set in the page layout program (like InDesign,) printer settings, or wherever it's being used. Setting the dpi in the file just removes any question about what it should be. But, naturally, you should try to provide it in a format requested by the client or printer.

Hope this helps

I am confused about all this. The client said any size was fine and they could scale it as long as it is 300 DPI. Every time I send them a sample they charge me 20 bucks. So this time I share the upload what Moho renders it and after PS converted. https://ibb.co/QpVs8sj

sbtamu wrote:I am confused about all this. The client said any size was fine and they could scale it as long as it is 300 DPI. Every time I send them a sample they charge me 20 bucks. So this time I share the upload what Moho renders it and after PS converted. https://ibb.co/QpVs8sj

Whaaa? Why is the client charging you? Is that in the work agreement?

sbtamu wrote:I am confused about all this. The client said any size was fine and they could scale it as long as it is 300 DPI.

That doesn't really make sense. DPI is simply 'dots per inch', which corresponds to the number of pixels in your image for printing purposes. If you have fewer pixels, the size will be smaller when printed at 300 dpi; if there are more pixels, the printed size will be larger at 300 dpi. To say that 'any size' is fine because they can scale it means they're not necessarily printing image at 300 dpi. It sounds like the client may not really understand the terminology or process.

Every time I send them a sample they charge me 20 bucks.

Like Wes, I don't understand this business arrangement either. Why are they charging you to create work for them?

Ok, getting back to the original request:

The resolution you want to render at depends on the size of the printed sticker. If the sticker is 1 x 1 inch, then the image needs to be rendered at 300 x 300 pixels. When the printer prints this at 300 dpi, the result is a 1 inch sticker. If the sticker is going to be 2 x 2 inch, then you need to render the image 600 x 600 pixels, and so forth.

As mentioned earlier, dpi is just the number of 'dots per inch'. This property is important for printing but it's irrelevant for animation, which is why Moho doesn't define dpi in its output. This is why you need to set the dpi in a program and file format that does (like Photoshop and PSD,)...although, tbh, it shouldn't matter so long as the necessary number of pixels are all there. If the printer sets the dpi when printing the image, the art should print at the intended print size.

Hope this helps.

Also, it doesn't hurt to render more pixels than necessary. This is just more assurance that the image will hold up to larger scaling if that becomes necessary. Too few pixels will, of course, look pixelated when scaled up.

The 300 dpi number is generally considered a minimum standard for traditional halftone printing. Many modern digital printing devices don't print with halftone screens. They use a stochastic dithering pattern instead, and they can produce very sharp print results with much lower resolutions. (Digital photo printers are a good example of this.)

I think your client is just throwing out the '300 dpi' number because it's a common specification for commercial printing, but it's also meaningless if you don't know the final size of the printed image. A more useful number would be the pixel dimensions of the image they need--that's the spec the client should be providing you for this project. If they don't know what that is, ask them what the final printed size is expected to be.

What Dennis says is true.
I just tested this ( by coincidence) this week.
Sometimes I do a cartoon for a local weekly publication, I used to carefully prepare a halftoned perfectly scaled document ( after seeing some dubious looking results from other providers), but the last batch I saved myself the effort and just sent it all at the high resolution I was working in.
I just received this week's edition today and it has printed startlingly well, much better than the 300 dpi I was sending I will definitely continue to save extra effort and just send through the highest resolution and let their printing software and hardware do all the work. After all, it is all native and optimised at their end, their antialiasing and screen toning is designed to match their printer.

Just keep the proportion correct and send it as big as possible. Go the equivalent of 600 dpi in pixels, why not? They are giving you their minimum requirement specs.

Really, your using Moho for your primary illustration program?

InfoCentral wrote:Really, your using Moho for your primary illustration program?

Oh no, this was CSP, just talking about resolution and exporting.
CSP explains all that math superbly, getting the correct pixel/print size/dpi is a no brainer in there.
DPI is the most misunderstood aspect of digital content creation, many programs muddy the waters even more, unnecessarily.

I have use Moho for illustration though, it's got some pretty neat tricks.

Sorry about the confusion Chucky. I was referring to the original (first) post sbtamu wrote.