Image sizes

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2021-03-18 15:20:59

What is the relationship between the size you see for an image on your screen, when Pixelmator Pro is saying 50%, 100% zoom factor etc., and the image size in inches given from the Image tab? There appears to be a compete difference in physical measurement but perhaps that's because the screen size would vary with hardware as opposed to when you print it? I am a confused newbie to this!!
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2021-03-22 09:40:50

Hey David! That's a great question and the answer is: there's no relationship between the image size in pixels (or what you're seeing on the screen) and its print dimensions. In fact, you can think of images as having two sizes — there's the original image size (measured by pixels) and there's its print size (measured by physical units such as inches, centimeters, etc.).

For example, if you'd create an image of 1000x1000 pixels and a resolution of 1 PPI and another image of the same size but with a resolution of 1000 PPI, you'd notice that they both look identical on screen, both size and qualitywise. However, when printed, the 1 PPI image will come out 1000 by 1000 inches, while the 1000 PPI one will be printed at merely 1 by 1 inch.

The best practice if you're working exclusively with digital images, is to simply ignore the physical dimensions and create or scale images using pixels alone. For images that will be printed, use the print units plus the resolution to specify how many pixels should be printed in one inch or centimeter.
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2021-03-25 01:14:16

Thanks so much Aurelija, that's very clear.
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2021-03-25 10:36:01

by David Hodgson 2021-03-24 23:14:16 Thanks so much Aurelija, that's very clear.
:pray: