Expert: Glen Demers - 2/22/2009

Question
Hello,


           I have Photoshop CS 8.0 & am having problems with the cartoons I color. I would like my cartoons to look like the ZIGGY cartoons that appear on the web (Example: http://news.yahoo.com/comics/ziggy;_ylt=AvZDRGRjRzEVlikG9JaovdiOoswF ). I right click on the ZIGGY cartoon for PROPERTIES & I see that the Width is 300 px & the Height is 292 px. So I go into Photoshop & I click on IMAGE from the top toolbar & then I click on IMAGE SIZE & then I type in 300 pixels for my Width & it calculates the Height for me automatically. Then I type in 72 pixels/inch for Resolution. Then I e-mail my finished cartoon to myself & when I open up my cartoon there are some WAVES & SQUIGGLES throughout the cartoon & background. There are waves & “ghosts” (like on a T.V.) around my characters in the cartoon. It is NOT clear & clean like the ZIGGY cartoons that appear on the web. Is the Photoshop  RESOLUTION setting of 72 pixels/inch the same as 72 dpi? I’m trying to make my colored cartoons look good for the WEB (NOT for PRINT)! Please let me know how I can make my cartoons look nice & smooth for the web (so it looks good on my computer monitor & web site), without having ripples & diffusion in my cartoons. THANKS!


Answer
Hi Paul,

If you uncheck the 'constrain proportions' option that will allow you to input both the height and width you want.
The Ziggy cartoons are probably rendered at a higher resolution and saved for web. You should start with a larger canvas, try 1250 by 1217 pixels and work in RGB mode. Then when finished save for web using the gif 64 with web palette option. Then open the image and under image size check 'constrain proportions' and uncheck 'resample image', set the width to 300 pixels, the height should go to 292 and save.
This will give you a finished piece comparable to the Ziggy cartoons.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

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