emailing pencils to inker

[Dnld]

i'm trying to e-mail some pencils to my inker but one attachment alone exceeds the memory capacity. they're 11 by 17 pages saved at 720 dpi and i'm using gmail. any help's appreciated guys.

[Jason Arthur]

720 dpi AND 11 x 17? That's overkill my friend.

Try 400 dpi and go ahead and take your pencils down to standard comic size of 6.875 x 10.4375

As long as everyone that follows (inker, colorist and letterer) all leave the dimensions and dpi intact you'll be fine.

-- J

[Scaleyinx]

Try yousendit.com. They're a free FTP hosting service. I use them all the time. You can send up to 1 GB.

[Fred Duran]

Try yousendit.com. They're a free FTP hosting service. I use them all the time. You can send up to 1 GB.
You can DOWNLOAD up to 1 GB, but only SEND up to 100 MB, something that hampered me recently. If you pay something like $10 a month, you get a 2 GB max size - but that's $10 a month.

With pencils at like 400 dpi you should be safe with yousendit, but once the inker starts sending stuff around, the pages will most likely be larger than 100 MB. One solution that I found is Pando (http://http://www.pando.com/downloadfree), which lets you send files AND folders up to 1 GB (for real this time! :laugh: ). It's only a 6 MB download, it installs quickly, and then you just upload whatever you want to send, it sends a link to the recipient, and they download the files or folders.

Hope this helps

-Fred

[Jason Arthur]

Maybe you should just burn a disc and send that to the inker via FedEx.

-- J

[Fred Duran]

Maybe you should just burn a disc and send that to the inker via FedEx.
That works too. No file size limits on snail mail :laugh:

[Aaron Hübrich]

I recommend using:

www.sendthisfile.com
No email attachments
No software to install
• No file size limit
• No limit on files sent
• Security same as email

I also use DROPBOX (https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTM3OTIxODk) , which is really really nice and secure

[Fred Duran]

Wow sendthisfile.com looks amazing. I might have to start using that.

Good stuff! :thumbs:

-Fred

[James Taylor]

Send them at full size 11x17 at 300dpi (200 works as well) anything above 300 is overkill for printing out on an inkjet printer. 720dpi is a huge file for greyscale pencils, fine for b/w inks but not pencils. And don't send them at print size, it's always better to work at full size for an inker.

If you have a website, setup an FTP account there or maybe they have one, then upload the files there.

Both www.yousendit.com and www.sendthisfile.com work great.

[Mecha]

Our printers, and even those at actual print centres, only print at a max of 300 dpi. And 300 is all that's needed for us to ink anyways. It's the INKS that have to be scanned in at either 300, 400, or 600 dpi depending on the project.

Also the free limit for Yousendit is 100mb PER FILE SEND. You can send as many as you want, you just can only have a max of 100mb per upload. I sent like 10 uploads of 75-90mb each in one day before.

[theflash]

just a note here, once you get the pages inked, the inker, or whoever gets the inks, can scan those inks as lineart and save a metric ton of space with regard to file size. most of my 300 dpi inked scans end up in the 450-550k range, give or take a few k.

[Jeremy Colwell]

Yes, just to reiterate this is what works best in my experiences.

pencils: 300dpi 11x17 grayscale jpeg (10 quality works well)
inks: 400-600dpi 11x17 bitmap tif (w/LZW compression)
colors: ? 300dpi print-size rgb jpeg ? (I don't have a standard yet, since each project has been different. Any established colorist willing to throw out their file type?)

[theflash]

Yes, just to reiterate this is what works best in my experiences.

pencils: 300dpi 11x17 grayscale jpeg (10 quality works well)
inks: 400-600dpi 11x17 bitmap tif (w/LZW compression)
colors: ? 300dpi print-size rgb jpeg ? (I don't have a standard yet, since each project has been different. Any established colorist willing to throw out their file type?)

i don't color, but i do the lettering and final production work on my books, and my colorists provide 300 dpi tiff files for regular pages, usually 500 dpi covers. CMYK as well.

[Scribbly]

I recommend using:

www.sendthisfile.com
No email attachments
No software to install
• No file size limit
• No limit on files sent
• Security same as email

I also use DROPBOX (https://www.getdropbox.com/referrals/NTM3OTIxODk) , which is really really nice and secure
Thanks for share that.
I was in pain after DROPLOAD went down.

[mattchee]

I have to concur with Mecha. I can't imagine why you'd need more than 300 dpi to ink.

[C. Wallace]

Not saying what others have said here will not work, but keep in mind that you should always think about the final product, and not always what's easiest for just one step of the process.

The one thing I will address is that you DO NOT want to make your images 300dpi at actual comic size. This will yield a full size page that's a little too light on resolution to work from.

The standard anywhere I have worked (Marvel, DC etc...) was 600dpi at full size 11"x17". As an inker, I would not want anything less than 600dpi as a resolution. Too many details can drop out or become unclear. You'll end up with a better finished product when the are downsized at the end of the process before seeing print at 400dpi. 600dpi also prints MUCH better out of my inkjet. Keep in mind even a 600dpi image printed at 300dpi looks better than a 300dpi image printed at 300dpi when dealing with most desktop printers.

Pencils should be converted to grayscale and sent as a TIF image with LZW compression. Taking a look at my archives, this brings the file size down to between 8-16 meg depending on image content.

I prefer to have raw pencil scans sent to me, I find that when they are fiddled with before hand, many time the image is contrasted to make pencil lines darker, with the side effect being the lighter details are lost.

Finished inks are cleaned up then converted to stark B&W 600dpi bitmap images and also sent as a TIFs.

E-mailing art is usually the best way to speed up production of a book. No waiting a day for FeEx to arrive. Instead you have a pencilled page to ink just minutes after the penciler is done. With that said, IMO, fedexing a disk seems counter productive to scanning the pencils in the first place. You may as well just send live boards.

Some good options were listed above for sending files, take advantage of those, or if you wish to take the easiest route then get your own FTP space. IIRC you can lease space for as little as $10 a month.

[C. Wallace]

Our printers, and even those at actual print centres, only print at a max of 300 dpi. And 300 is all that's needed for us to ink anyways. It's the INKS that have to be scanned in at either 300, 400, or 600 dpi depending on the project.

Whoa, that's a broad brush your painting with.

Magazine standard in general is 300dpi, but they can certainly print at different resolutions. We prepped files for 400dpi printing many times in the past, and even higher resolutions are possible. It depends on what your printing. Any real print house can print at higher resolutions. Many of these "comic book" printing firms out there stick to ONLY 300dpi because it's easiest for them.

BTW, How detailed is the work your inking? I hate working off of 300dpi images. I would imagine though a good deal would depend on the art involved. The less feathering, hatching etc... on art

Also the free limit for Yousendit is 100mb PER FILE SEND. You can send as many as you want, you just can only have a max of 100mb per upload. I sent like 10 uploads of 75-90mb each in one day before.

75-90 meg per image?, or were you zipping up multiple files to that size? Inks or color? Sounds a bit large for inks....just curious. ;)

[Mecha]

Broad brush? I started out at independent publishers and moved on up to mainstream (such as work with Marvel). The inking I do is highly detailed and high quality. However the independent publishers only required 300 dpi scans while my work on interiors and covers for mainstream publishers have required 400 and 600 dpi scans.

With my mainstream work, I get the pencils at 300 dpi, print them at 300 dpi, ink them, and scan them at 400 dpi because that's what is required. The files are then saved as 400 dpi TIFF files with LZW compression. I did the same for my past work in independents but at the 300 dpi instead of 400 dpi.

Now that I think about it, you appear to have misunderstood everything we've been saying here. You seem to think we're talking about the final printing in book or magazine form from your post above. We're talking about printing the pencils out for inking.

When I mentioned printers printing the pages for inking at 300 dpi -- the OUTPUT is 300 dpi. You aren't aware but I used to work for a major print centre. It doesn't matter if the files are a higher resolution the OUTPUT at 11x17 (or smaller) on the printers is 300 dpi. Only large scale printers like poster printers, canvas printers, etc have a HIGHER output as necessary.

About yousendit.com -- I zip multiple files and was providing information as to the limits of usage. There's no reason for someone to pay for an FTP when these services are perfectly usable. However email accounts such as gmail can also send and receive up to 20mb in attachments per email, not sure if that was mentioned before. That means 1-2 pages can be attached to each email.

[C. Wallace]

Broad brush? I started out at independent publishers and moved on up to mainstream (such as work with Marvel). The inking I do is highly detailed and high quality. However the independent publishers only required 300 dpi scans while my work on interiors and covers for mainstream publishers have required 400 and 600 dpi scans.Settle down, nobody ever commented on your inking abilities.

The "broad brush" comment was in reference to your quote of print centers only printing a max of 300dpi. This is not true, while 300dpi is standard, any good print house can go up in resolution. I've spent almost 18 years working in comics and dealing with printers regularly for many other projects.

I also started my first post by specifically stating:Not saying what others have said here will not work, but keep in mind that you should always think about the final product, and not always what's easiest for just one step of the process.I then proceeded to share what I have experienced as an industry standard over the past several years, and what I know from personal experience from working in the field.

What's the point of a forum like this if those of us with experience cant help those of us with questions to be answered? We can help save folks a lot of time and misery.

With my mainstream work, I get the pencils at 300 dpi, print them at 300 dpi, ink them, and scan them at 400 dpi because that's what is required. The files are then saved as 400 dpi TIFF files with LZW compression. I did the same for my past work in independents but at the 300 dpi instead of 400 dpi.Not to say some publishers may not accept images at a lower resolution, but we were always given very specific instructions and procedure on how to prep files and 600dpi was the magic number for both pencils and inks. I was never fighting about what is right or wrong, only passing on what I have experienced. On a personal level, I just would't work from 300dpi pencil scans. Been there, done that, my eyes can see the difference and I don't like it. I am infinitely more comfortable working on 600dpi printouts.

Now that I think about it, you appear to have misunderstood everything we've been saying here. You seem to think we're talking about the final printing in book or magazine form from your post above. We're talking about printing the pencils out for inking. Nope, read the whole thread, I completely follow everything that's being said. If you re-read my post, I address both final print output as well as scanning resolution.

When I mentioned printers printing the pages for inking at 300 dpi -- the OUTPUT is 300 dpi. You aren't aware but I used to work for a major print centre. It doesn't matter if the files are a higher resolution the OUTPUT at 11x17 (or smaller) on the printers is 300 dpi. Only large scale printers like poster printers, canvas printers, etc have a HIGHER output as necessary. Where did you work? As I stated already, any print house worth their salt can print at higher resolution, many art and photography books are printed at 400dpi instead of 300dpi. Just because where you worked only had the capacity for 300dpi does not make it universal fact. We used to prep files for printing comics back in 2001 for 400dpi OUTPUT. I know 300dpi has become a standard (mostly due to costs) but to say it's the ONLY option is a falsehood and complete and utter misinformation.

About yousendit.com -- I zip multiple files and was providing information as to the limits of usage. There's no reason for someone to pay for an FTP when these services are perfectly usable. However email accounts such as gmail can also send and receive up to 20mb in attachments per email, not sure if that was mentioned before. That means 1-2 pages can be attached to each email.There are numerous reasons to opt for FTP over e-mail. E-mail and FTP are 2 completely different things. It all depends how you prefer to do business and who with. Some folks only want to pull files from an FTP or for you to upload to theirs. I prefer FTP for reliability and accessability issues.

I can upload art to an FTP, then anyone that I need to get it to can download it anytime. It's always there, no chance of an e-mail not going through, an attachment being dropped, caught up in a spam or file size filter on the other end. In the end it's also more direct, no third party. Call it personal choice, whatever, but to say it's not worth it just because the other option is free just doesn't cut it for me. FTP space is ridiculously useful, especially when you think of it as a flash drive you don't have to remember to carry with you.

[Mecha]

any print house worth their salt can print at higher resolution, many art and photography books are printed at 400dpi instead of 300dpi. Just because where you worked only had the capacity for 300dpi does not make it universal fact. We used to prep files for printing comics back in 2001 for 400dpi OUTPUT. I know 300dpi has become a standard (mostly due to costs) but to say it's the ONLY option is a falsehood and complete and utter misinformation.

That is where you're confused. You say print houses and talk about printing capacity of books. We're talking about printing out the pages for inking.

The physical output of the printers used to print the pencils out onto art boards for inking is 300 dpi. HOWEVER, the output of large scale printers such as posters, canvas prints, etc is higher. Those are different machines. The machines that print the actual comics are ALSO different machines and are not the ones being referred to for printing pencils for inking. Comprendez?

By the way, telling me to "settle down" -- my reply was stating, as you ASKED "How detailed is your inking", that it IS detailed. I've worked with many of these machines (both the ones used to print pencils for inking as well as the ones used to print high quality glossy posters, canvas prints, vinyl banners, magazines, and other materials) as I explained since your information was *indirectly* incorrect. You were talking about one thing while we were talking about another, that's all.

[L Jamal]

C Wallace, Mecha is talking about the printer connected to the computer that the inker is using to print out the pencils onto the board for inking. She's not talking about the printer providing the printing services for the final product.

Most home printers do not print (in color) beyond 300 DPI. Those that do don't go beyond 600 DPI. For inking purposes, any pencils at 200-300 DPI should be more than adequate.

[mattchee]

I would imagine that any detail so fine that you need to print the pencils out at 600dpi to ink, would be totally lost when you scaled the image down to print size even at 600dpi.