Dealing With Images for the Press

When I first started out in journalism, dealing with images was very simple. I simply asked the source – whether it was a picture agency, photographer or press office – for a transparency or photograph which I would job bag with the written copy.

Digital images now mean that all I have to do is put the jpeg or tiff file into a right folder on the company server for the design department. Unfortunately, too often, the digital images that are supplied are not ideal for the print media. Most image suppliers know that Web based publications require a different resolution than print, but can you be 100 percent certain about concepts of and relationship between file size, image canvas size and resolution?

The file size refers to the size in bytes – whether it is a jpeg, tiff or other format. Occasionally, I get the misconception that the larger the file size, the higher the resolution the image actually will be. Many times I have had to explain to a PR contact that their image was not usable only for them to snap, “But it was two megabytes!”

Whereas the actual size of an image might give you some inkling of the resolution or canvas size, there are a number of other factors affecting the size of the file – such as the compression level of the file or the amount of information in the actual file (interleaved, colour range, etc). Thus file size is the most unreliable factor in determining an image’s suitability.

A more reliable determinant is resolution which refers to the actual pixel density - and is usually expressed as dots per inch (dpi). For print, 300 dpi works best; and for the Web, 72 dpi is preferred. Unfortunately, the concept of resolution is often confused with the canvas size.

The canvas size refers to the dimensions (expressed in centimetres or inches) that an image will appear when printed on paper or on a computer screen. Therefore, if you have an image whose canvas size is approximately A4, but whose resolution is 72 dpi (ideal for the Web), it will be blocky or fuzzy when printed on paper at this size. If the same image had a resolution of 300 dpi, there would be approximately four times the pixels to cover the same area (because 72 goes into 300 4.16 times). Thus the final printed image would appear much smoother.

Therefore, as well as ensuring that the image has a 300 dpi print resolution, make sure it has a decent canvas size. There is no use supplying an image which has a 300 dpi when the dimensions are about the size of a postage stamp - as designers will not be able to scale up.

How to check images

The good news is that you won’t need expensive photo manipulation software to check to see if the images you are planning to supply to press are suitable. Microsoft Windows Paint program provides a very simple way to check images.

Firstly, open the Paint application, click on properties and you will have a dialogue box as illustrated in screenshot 1. In this example, the image resolution is 72 dpi and the pixel size is 1024 by 683.

 

If we toggle the image units option in our example to display the size in inches, you will get a display like screenshot 2 which tells you that the image is 14.22 by 9.49 inches. But because the resolution is 72 dpi, it will be unsuitable to be printed at this scale. As mentioned earlier, you would have to divide the measurements by a factor of four to get the size it will reproduce in print.

 

 

Now you will be the most popular public relations professional who deals with the print media.