72 Vs. 150ppi?

[LowcountryWraps]

Hello Everyone. I first want to say thank you all. Im so lucky to have found this site.

My question is. Ive been told, and read that I should print my large print format in 72 and set it at Adobe 98. And also was told by Flexi that I should set my art boards to RGB?

I dont understand why it wouldn't be better to design in CMYK and 150dpi.

Can anyone please help explain why.

Thank you.

 

[J Hill Designs]

RGB has a larger gamut, as does your printer, than traditional CMYK

150 seems about right as far as dpi, however

 

[Solventinkjet]

Make a file each way and print it to see for yourself. Personally, I believe if you are printing in CMYK you should be designing in CMYK. But since I do not run a printer daily and do not have to deal with customers wanting specific colors etc., you will find that many people have different preferences on this forum due to the many factors that go into printing and more importantly, color. The best way to learn is to play around with the settings and see what changes in the prints.

 

[John Butto]

Great advice given.

Make a file each way and print it to see for yourself. Personally, I believe if you are printing in CMYK you should be designing in CMYK. But since I do not run a printer daily and do not have to deal with customers wanting specific colors etc., you will find that many people have different preferences on this forum due to the many factors that go into printing and more importantly, color. The best way to learn is to play around with the settings and see what changes in the prints.

Best advice you could get, experiment, see what works best for you and your setup.

 

[Baz]

Just my opinion i am by no means an expert on color.

Like J Hill says. RGB has a larger color space than CMYK. You'll hit more colors. Richer blacks. As far as resolution. If i am printing a photo i will go as low as 85dpi and it looks great. 72dpi is "ok" though. Now if i am printing small text i will go to a minimum of 125 dpi and it looks great.

I am mentioning the minimum resolution and this is basically for large prints. This will optimize your memory usage. Going RGB will also give you a smaller file size than CMYK.

If you are setting up something small like a 2"x3" print then there is no problem in setting your resolution higher.

 

[XD Web & Graphics]

It's math.

RIP software sends the file to the printer at a standard of 72dpi. If you notice when you use some files such as Aurora or Bad Wrap they will be, for example, 27" at 720dpi. The reason is when you blow this up full size the final output will be 270" x 72dpi.

This is done so you don't change the pixel rate, just the dpi and the size of the image.