[Lomi]

Hi all, I havent posted here in ages... been really busy. I just have a question, I have an employer who is enquiring about me doing a fairly complex logo and other such pieces in a very large size (2' * 6'). What kind of system would I need for some REASONABLE feedback? Any help is appreciated, thanks.


BTW it's 300-600 DPI

[Gort]

Conventions for logo development are tailored towards vector format, so it really doesn't matter as long as the machine can run Illustrator, Freehand, etc.

If it's a rastar based design (non-convention for transferring logotypes across multiple media) then bulk up on CPU and memory. Large scaled images in high DPIs will devour system resources, so the more "umph" the better
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- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Lomi]

ya, thats sort of what I meant, like how much ram, and what speed cpu would I need? its PSD format that I send off the completed work in

CMYK colors
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[Gort]

I have done similar work on a PII 450 with 256 megs of ram, and it was very painful. Whatever you can afford, if you're going the PC route, is pretty much the mantra. The more the merrier. I recently got a new machine at work - much faster (P IV 1.7 gig), more memory (512), and I've done a few high rez projects that worked out well. I have a dual 1 gig machine at home with a gig of memory, and it often outperforms the P IV.

Like I said - as much as you can afford. Photoshop is a resource hog and needs all you can give it - especially on a project such as yours. Multilayered PSDs at those sizes you described will tax the machine.

Memory is very, very cheap. If this is something that you're going to be doing a lot of, then consider a dual motherboard with a RAID controller; it's a bit pricey (requiring two identical "stripped" hard drives) but worth it for the serious. Other than that you should be ok with any of the single P IVs (go as high as you can), just don't skimp on the memory!

Anything less than a single 1 gig cpu and 512 megs of memory is asking for slow downs.

Worse case scenario is that you can't afford it, so I would go back and assess the actual logo; is it something that can replicated in a vector form?
_________________
- Tom Carter

"You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf" - Jack Kornfield

[Lomi]

ok, its extremely complicated (the logo that is), its a fantasy RPG company, so no I dont see it being possible with vector heh... and I have a tbird 1.33 with 512 mb's of ddr, and on a 2*4 inch image i get about a 2 second lag between any changes and seeing them... so at 2 feet by like 6 feet.... DEAR GOD lol

im probably going to need to get dual athlon mp's (budget) and about 1.5 gigs of ram at least... and even then i expect some lag
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From whence i came, I shall return.

[cheney]

Logos are best created as vector images. Vector images are upward scalable without quality loss, so pixel size is not relevent. As a result the image does not have to be large to print at high quality if its vector.

If its a raster based image creation system you plan to implement then you need a super badass memory bandwidth system. A raster image is any 2D image format that maps image data to pixel units across a bitmap. Basicly, a pixel is a single unit of image data containing a single color written in one of various RGB (Red Green Blue) color formats. These pixels are then spread across a rectangular grid in a color pattern representing your image.

In other words a raster image is any image that is 2D and not vector. Its just about everything digital you will ever look at. The internet only displays raster images.

So, why the hell would you need a good computer for raster images? Before I can answer this question I am going to barely tap the surface of digital printing.

When you printing an image from a standard program (such as MS Word, or Internet Explorer) the image will be printed at 72dpi without any regard to image data or image size. This is why professional print jobs come out of professional software. Pro print software is really cheap, and it does alot of magic, but its also worthless if you have a great raster image software such as Photoshop or Painter.

Anyways, a pro print software will allow the user to specific the size of the print from a specified image. The specified image will have a set image size. You can try to make the image look larger by upsizing it, but it will look like crap. It will become foggy and blurry to compensate for extreme pixelation. To better understand pixelation think back to the blocky characters of the first Nintento games. You can try to create a large print from a small image, but this will create very noticable pixelation. Since you cannot create large prints from small images or make small images larger the only way to create high quality large prints is to start from a large image.

By large I don't mean kinda big. I really mean insanely huge like comparing an apple to the Astro Dome (largest dome in the world at the time of its creation, and the first dome created larger than the Pantheon in Rome). Print quality is measured in DPI (dots per inch). Logically there could be a DPCM (dots per centimeter), but nobody uses it. DPI defines the quality of a print, because it means the amount of pixel image units per one inch of print space.

The lowest quality of print commonly used is standard text printing, which defaults to 72dpi. This resolution is just large enough to fully utilize anti-aliasing to text characters, so that the characters print out smoothly like on your screen rather than pixelated and blockly like they were typically designed. Text is typically black and white and contains no image data except for the text characters. Keep in mind that generally text characters will print fine no matter how somebody fucks up their settings because text files are vector images.

Any print where image data is concerned is a whole new world of complexity. For smaller prints such as CD jewelcase covers and smaller the minimum standard for a pro print is 600dpi. This means a 6inch by 6inch cd jewel cover should be created as a 3600x3600px image before printing without any upsizing. For most people that is just insanly huge, but really its only the tip of the ice burg. Keep in mind that CD jewel cases are not very large.

Now imagine a standard sized movie poster. That is a print sized at 20x30inches. For larger images it is acceptable to let detail slide, because our mind tells us to less closely for details on larger areas due to how our minds configure visual input for processing perception. So, lets say a poster is a great print at 300dpi. The math results in an image that needs to be created at 6000x9000 pixels. This is starting to get pretty large. If you consider all the layer and channel data that goes into making an image at this size in Photoshop will be lucky to get a PSD smaller than 100mb.

What most people don't consider is that PSD size is not really the true image size. PSD is one of the greatest compression and data packing algorithms on the planet due to how it configures layers into a saved package. The open image will consume anywhere between 2 to 20 times this amount of space. Lets say your final PSD image is around 650mb, then when the project is open its really taking up anywhere from 1300mb to 13gb.

Now, to answer the hardware question. How are you going to move more than 1gb of data around for processing? Luckily the program will only task what it needs, so its a bit more efficient than you might think, but not much. If you request data that is not currently in memory then you must sit and wait for data to transfer from hard disk to ram. This takes alot of time and creates alot of headaches.

Now consider that most ram is not very fast. Its much faster than hard drive access, but compared to cpu cache memory ram is like a stick in the mud. Even if all your data is in memory you will still have to wait for data transfers from ram to cache.

So, you need a system that contains my ideal memory configuration. An extremely high bandwidth memory, and alot of it. Current AMD and Intel cpus can only task up to 4gb of memory the rest is either wasted or operating at retarted levels. So, that is why you set 4gb (or less, but not less than 1.5gb) as ram. The rest of the memory you load a ramdisk. A ramdisk is software that loads a filesystem image onto memory so that memory operates as an additional harddrive. Data stored in a ramdisk will be lost when the system reboots, but if its going to be used as primary scratch disk that does not matter. Current Intel MCHs(memory controller hub, the chipset that runs the motherboard) allow up to 16gb of maximum memory. This should be enough for most users.

I hope this explains more than you ever wanted to know about raster hardware limitations for print.
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[Lomi]

thank you cheney! very informative, wow it must have taken a while to type all that hehe
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From whence i came, I shall return.

[cheney]

You're welcome! I don't think it really took very long at all. I got of work being a busboy/dishwasher and my brain went into brainstorm mode.
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[B0b]

i've worked on large (10' x 15') format displays on a 350Mhz machine with 128Mb RAM..

when dealing with large format print u can get away with 150-200 Dpi