POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.general : AA for Printing : Re: AA for Printing Server Time
4 Aug 2024 18:16:56 EDT (-0400)
  Re: AA for Printing  
From: Renderdog
Date: 6 Mar 2003 23:55:04
Message: <web.3e6824a02b3bef93aacec0780@news.povray.org>
Corey wrote:
>I'm gonna be printing some of my POV images to frame around my pad :) since
>I'm doin' the work myself (I'm a poor student and all) My question is what
>AA settings should I use? I've never done anything for print before so any
>other advice you can give me when it comes to POV and Print would be helpful
>too. thanks!

It depends on your printer somewhat, but generally AA is less important for
prints since you'll print a higher resolution version of your image than
what you see on screen. Find the native resolution of your printer and use
an even multiple of that for the resolution of your image. For example,
since 200-300dpi is considered a good range for a high quality, smooth
image, I use 240dpi since my inkjet printer's native resolution is
720/1440dpi. If you print borderless be aware that most printers scale the
image up slightly so this can throw off the optimum print resolution. If no
one is going to look at the print closely, lower resolutions are okay.

If the image has very thin lines that don't anti-alias very well you may
want to go up on the dpi to make the aliasing less visible on the print.
Changing the AA setting (as long as you're using method 2) doesn't seem to
help much.

Printed images will never look as vivid as they look on your monitor, partly
due to the different color ranges, but also because your monitor is a
transmissive media. I've printed an image on transparency and plan to mount
it on a backlit panel (www.photoglow.com) to get closer to what I see on a
monitor. However printed images can look better in other ways, and I
especially like the look of some prints on matte paper, with no glass
covering the image.

Lastly, if your printer doesn't use pigment inks the image may fade rather
quickly, especially if it's not covered by glass. Also, be sure to use acid
free "archival" paper and mattes if you want long life.


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.