On an aside, I hope they let you increase the number of icons in the rows and columns to five or six.
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iPad Wallpaper Resolution
- Thread starter Sketh
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I guess I'll just wait.
That's exactly one of the things that I was saying, there are many different things that can be done about the wallpaper and I haven't have the opportunity to use an IPad yet to tell.
My sister has had two IPhones and now she has a 3gs but as you know it only shows the wallpaper when you turn it on.
I was watching the Apple video again and I saw the picture with the mountains that they were showing and I did notice that the wallpaper rotated orientation and that in landscape mode I think that that picture was cropped automatically.
There are different things that can be done about this. For example, you could make a 1024 x 768 wallpaper that has a texture that looks good either horizontally or vertically. Do as they did and make a wallpaper with either landscape or portrait orientation and test it to see how good it looks when it is cropped but I would have to try an IPad with a square 1024 x 1024 resolution to see how good it looks in either mode, after all there are photos that when cropped in two different ways can still look good but is not all of them.
I wonder if it would be possible for Apple to program the device in the future (I'm talking hypothetically here of course) to have two different wallpapers that it would switch automatically, one optimized for landscape mode and the other for portrait mode.
This would be new cause I have never seen a PC that does that even if it has a display that can rotate from landscape mode to portrait mode and you know that there are a few of those displays out there. I don't know if any display like that included an utility that could do that, it could be but I have not seen that yet.
So it could be a first to have a computer that loads two different wallpapers as an option.
One little issue with that is that it has to rotate the wallpaper and one possible way to handle it would be to smoothly fade one wallpaper into the other while it rotates them or something similar, I think that the machine has more than enough processing power to do that so one could design a wallpaper that has two optimal orientations but look similar or even load two completely different wallpapers for the two different orientations as one wishes but again you could have the option of loading only one wallpaper for simplicity.
So you could have like a screen with two different boxes or something like that where you would see and select the two wallpapers (maybe thumbnails) and if you only loaded one wallpaper in one of those two boxes and left or selected the other as a blank then the IPad would use the one available wallpaper only.
Darn, I think that that would be cool.
That's exactly one of the things that I was saying, there are many different things that can be done about the wallpaper and I haven't have the opportunity to use an IPad yet to tell.
My sister has had two IPhones and now she has a 3gs but as you know it only shows the wallpaper when you turn it on.
I was watching the Apple video again and I saw the picture with the mountains that they were showing and I did notice that the wallpaper rotated orientation and that in landscape mode I think that that picture was cropped automatically.
There are different things that can be done about this. For example, you could make a 1024 x 768 wallpaper that has a texture that looks good either horizontally or vertically. Do as they did and make a wallpaper with either landscape or portrait orientation and test it to see how good it looks when it is cropped but I would have to try an IPad with a square 1024 x 1024 resolution to see how good it looks in either mode, after all there are photos that when cropped in two different ways can still look good but is not all of them.
I wonder if it would be possible for Apple to program the device in the future (I'm talking hypothetically here of course) to have two different wallpapers that it would switch automatically, one optimized for landscape mode and the other for portrait mode.
This would be new cause I have never seen a PC that does that even if it has a display that can rotate from landscape mode to portrait mode and you know that there are a few of those displays out there. I don't know if any display like that included an utility that could do that, it could be but I have not seen that yet.
So it could be a first to have a computer that loads two different wallpapers as an option.
One little issue with that is that it has to rotate the wallpaper and one possible way to handle it would be to smoothly fade one wallpaper into the other while it rotates them or something similar, I think that the machine has more than enough processing power to do that so one could design a wallpaper that has two optimal orientations but look similar or even load two completely different wallpapers for the two different orientations as one wishes but again you could have the option of loading only one wallpaper for simplicity.
So you could have like a screen with two different boxes or something like that where you would see and select the two wallpapers (maybe thumbnails) and if you only loaded one wallpaper in one of those two boxes and left or selected the other as a blank then the IPad would use the one available wallpaper only.
Darn, I think that that would be cool.
Agreed and I'm assuming they do rotate. If not the the Home Screen is portrait only and Steve is incorrect by saying there is no wrong way to hold it(at least for the Home screen).
Also if this is correct (Home doesn't rotate) then all wallpaper should be 1024x768.
It clearly rotates in the videos of it being used, we've established this.
We've also established that it's 1024 x 1024, as I believe people have confirmed this on the iPad Simulator.
Could you post a link to a video? Can someone with the SDK/simulator confirm if it auto crops to 768 to retain correct aspect ratio (geometry)? Can this be determined/simulated with the SDK? If this is the case I would assume interfacelift has simulated and determined 1024x1024 to be the correct size for the iPad.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to intentionally bruise your ego, but you're wrong. DPI is nothing more than information that informs your printer how close together to space the dots, or how many Dots Per Inch it should print.
The reason Apple list the DPI in their tech specs is because it makes the screen look more detailed. Usually a computer screen will be 96 DPI but 132 DPI on the iPad means the pixels are very tightly packed together, making it higher quality. — It's the exact same concept as HDTV.
But as far as images or wallpaper creation goes, the DPI doesn't matter because you're not printing anything. Only 1024x1024 matters.
This page should tell you some more:
http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html#1 — You'll see 3 copies of the same image; one copy @ 7 dpi, one @ 72 dpi, and one @ 720 dpi. See if you can find a single difference between them.
…Print them out, however, and you'll see the same image printed in small, medium, and large sizes.
I know but...
I understand that and I have an idea of how a 1024 x 1024 wallpaper may work but I have a question, if a person makes a 1024 x 768 wallpaper what will the device do with it? Will the device crop the wallpaper automatically or letterbox it?
Because this has to do with the fact that there are a gazillion wallpapers already designed at 1024 x 768 resolution because it was a common resolution of the old displays and if the device can be made to work just fine with them people don't have to wait for more IPad specific wallpapers and can use those in the meantime.
What exactly does the device does with a wallpaper that is 1024 x 768? And is there a setting in the machine that allows the user to prevent it from rotating the wallpaper automatically if a person doesn't care about the rotation and wants for example a 1024 x 768 wallpaper that stays in landscape mode or in portrait mode?
Why do I ask or why I would want that? Because you could for example create a wallpaper at 1024 x 768 that has a nice texture and for example put a pretty Apple logo silver apple at a corner diagonally as some modern designers do and it would look good at either orientation without any rotation at all, do you see?
The question is what are the choices that the user has with this? Or it is just the use of a 1024 x 1024 wallpaper that always rotate forcefully? And is that it?
I understand that and I have an idea of how a 1024 x 1024 wallpaper may work but I have a question, if a person makes a 1024 x 768 wallpaper what will the device do with it? Will the device crop the wallpaper automatically or letterbox it?
Because this has to do with the fact that there are a gazillion wallpapers already designed at 1024 x 768 resolution because it was a common resolution of the old displays and if the device can be made to work just fine with them people don't have to wait for more IPad specific wallpapers and can use those in the meantime.
What exactly does the device does with a wallpaper that is 1024 x 768? And is there a setting in the machine that allows the user to prevent it from rotating the wallpaper automatically if a person doesn't care about the rotation and wants for example a 1024 x 768 wallpaper that stays in landscape mode or in portrait mode?
Why do I ask or why I would want that? Because you could for example create a wallpaper at 1024 x 768 that has a nice texture and for example put a pretty Apple logo silver apple at a corner diagonally as some modern designers do and it would look good at either orientation without any rotation at all, do you see?
The question is what are the choices that the user has with this? Or it is just the use of a 1024 x 1024 wallpaper that always rotate forcefully? And is that it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyjEb3hQKeA
Happens in the opening 2 seconds - blink and you'll miss it!
I assume it'll work the same as the iPhone. You pick an image out of your photo library and then it comes up with a bounding box and you can scale or crop the image to fit into the bounding box accordingly. So if it's 1024x768, I assume you would either scale the image up to fit into the resolution, or you would add black bars on the 768 side of the image.
I'm sorry to inform you that you haven't even begun to bruise my ego yet
I'm sorry to inform to you EssentialParado that is your information that is completely wrong. You have a huge, HUGE misunderstanding about what you explained. As a matter of fact what you explained is downright impossible.
Dpi is not information about how to space the dots in a printer because for that to be true there would have to be spaces between the dots and in pixel images there are none. In laser printers and in Inkjets there are spaces between some dots sometimes because of the lines of screen of the printer because when a printer driver converts a continuous tone image such as full color 24 bit image to the printer and it rasterizes the image for the device it has to create a lines of screen pattern representation of the continuous tone image that is similar to the way a Gif image is dithered.
This process is part of the color separation process and some printers are forced to do this because they do not vary the tones of the color by varying how dark or how light the color of each dot is printed because regular laser printers and inkjets can't do that, every dot is printed as a solid dot and they create the different shades that they need to print by creating something similar to a Gif dithered image, as a matter of fact what they do is to dither the image but in a special way that in graphic arts and pre-press is called lines of screen and as many graphic professionals know, lines of screen resolution is not the same as printer raw resolution.
The reason that in a printer you don't see or barely see the dithering is due to the fact that their resolution is way higher than that of the pixels of your screen but even in these type of printing methods there are areas in which there is no space whatsoever between the dots because if you put spaces in those areas of solid fill it would create a wrong color and in the case of continuous tone printers such as dye sublimation photo printers that can vary the color of every printed dot they do not need to dither the images as inkjets and regular lasers do so there is no space between the dots whatsoever so what you say is completely wrong.
When you give the example of the 3 images with different Dpi settings that look the same you are making a wrong observation. The images will look the same in a computer display because the computer display will show the total pixels of the image but you are not looking in the right place, the images have the same total resolution pixels and the same amount of information but the information specified in the file related to its Dpi resolution at the moment of saving is different and like I said before this can be interpreted by another software in different ways and this has some uses.
Let me explain this better with an example because this confuses a lot of people all the time, you go to a software such as The Gimp and you create 3 different files and save them in The Gimp native .xcf format and you create the 3 different files at the same total resolution of 640 x 480 and you give the files 3 different names such as red, green, blue and you paint something different in each to recognize them later but you go into the Image menu and you select Scale Image and you specify 3 different Dpi resolutions for those 3 images and after that you go into the same Image menu and select Canvas Size and then in the area called Canvas Size select the drop box to the right and change it from pixels to inches and you will see that your image size is now differently specified in inches for all three images because like I said before the ratio or relation between total image size in a chosen measuring unit such as inches and total image resolution is what determines Dpi density.
This means that those three images have been specified at different Sizes with different Dpi densities. Their intended size for use has been specified by the user. If you go to a software such as CorelDraw and you import the 3 images in the program and you just leave them as default (as they were imported) you will see that they now are at different sizes in inches despite them having in reality the exact same total resolution and the same amount of information.
If you use the manipulation handles of CorelDraw and you resize the 3 pictures to make them the same size in inches and you save or print that layout then the images will be identical cause their total resolution or information in them in terms of the total pixels that comprise the images is identical because when you changed the size in inches you changed the ratio of total pixels vs image size and therefore changed effectively their Dpi density and made it equal again but saving the images with their respective information specified correctly in the original creation software tells the user of another program such as the case of a CorelDraw user what was the intended size by the image creator in a measuring system such as the English measuring system (in this particular example) was and the intended Dpi resolution density for the image.
This is why when you print your 3 different images they will print in 3 different sizes.
Like I said before this information can be read and interpreted correctly by different software programs and it has uses but it would take me a whole page to explain some examples of how not understanding how to save this information correctly in the original software by the creator of the image can cause some problems in certain situations but in wallpaper making the information is irrelevant because Operating Systems ignore the saved Dpi information and image size info in inches or any other measuring system utilized and they just read the total resolution of the image in pixels such as 1024 x 768 for wallpapers but that does not mean that the information specified in the file doesn't have any use, trust me it does.
If I was there in front of you I could explain this to you completely until you said Ohh! I now see what you mean! and I could explain to you how this information can be put to use but it is as you can see it is very difficult to explain completely through a posting system such as this.
I'm sorry to inform to you EssentialParado that is your information that is completely wrong. You have a huge, HUGE misunderstanding about what you explained. As a matter of fact what you explained is downright impossible.
Dpi is not information about how to space the dots in a printer because for that to be true there would have to be spaces between the dots and in pixel images there are none. In laser printers and in Inkjets there are spaces between some dots sometimes because of the lines of screen of the printer because when a printer driver converts a continuous tone image such as full color 24 bit image to the printer and it rasterizes the image for the device it has to create a lines of screen pattern representation of the continuous tone image that is similar to the way a Gif image is dithered.
This process is part of the color separation process and some printers are forced to do this because they do not vary the tones of the color by varying how dark or how light the color of each dot is printed because regular laser printers and inkjets can't do that, every dot is printed as a solid dot and they create the different shades that they need to print by creating something similar to a Gif dithered image, as a matter of fact what they do is to dither the image but in a special way that in graphic arts and pre-press is called lines of screen and as many graphic professionals know, lines of screen resolution is not the same as printer raw resolution.
The reason that in a printer you don't see or barely see the dithering is due to the fact that their resolution is way higher than that of the pixels of your screen but even in these type of printing methods there are areas in which there is no space whatsoever between the dots because if you put spaces in those areas of solid fill it would create a wrong color and in the case of continuous tone printers such as dye sublimation photo printers that can vary the color of every printed dot they do not need to dither the images as inkjets and regular lasers do so there is no space between the dots whatsoever so what you say is completely wrong.
When you give the example of the 3 images with different Dpi settings that look the same you are making a wrong observation. The images will look the same in a computer display because the computer display will show the total pixels of the image but you are not looking in the right place, the images have the same total resolution pixels and the same amount of information but the information specified in the file related to its Dpi resolution at the moment of saving is different and like I said before this can be interpreted by another software in different ways and this has some uses.
Let me explain this better with an example because this confuses a lot of people all the time, you go to a software such as The Gimp and you create 3 different files and save them in The Gimp native .xcf format and you create the 3 different files at the same total resolution of 640 x 480 and you give the files 3 different names such as red, green, blue and you paint something different in each to recognize them later but you go into the Image menu and you select Scale Image and you specify 3 different Dpi resolutions for those 3 images and after that you go into the same Image menu and select Canvas Size and then in the area called Canvas Size select the drop box to the right and change it from pixels to inches and you will see that your image size is now differently specified in inches for all three images because like I said before the ratio or relation between total image size in a chosen measuring unit such as inches and total image resolution is what determines Dpi density.
This means that those three images have been specified at different Sizes with different Dpi densities. Their intended size for use has been specified by the user. If you go to a software such as CorelDraw and you import the 3 images in the program and you just leave them as default (as they were imported) you will see that they now are at different sizes in inches despite them having in reality the exact same total resolution and the same amount of information.
If you use the manipulation handles of CorelDraw and you resize the 3 pictures to make them the same size in inches and you save or print that layout then the images will be identical cause their total resolution or information in them in terms of the total pixels that comprise the images is identical because when you changed the size in inches you changed the ratio of total pixels vs image size and therefore changed effectively their Dpi density and made it equal again but saving the images with their respective information specified correctly in the original creation software tells the user of another program such as the case of a CorelDraw user what was the intended size by the image creator in a measuring system such as the English measuring system (in this particular example) was and the intended Dpi resolution density for the image.
This is why when you print your 3 different images they will print in 3 different sizes.
Like I said before this information can be read and interpreted correctly by different software programs and it has uses but it would take me a whole page to explain some examples of how not understanding how to save this information correctly in the original software by the creator of the image can cause some problems in certain situations but in wallpaper making the information is irrelevant because Operating Systems ignore the saved Dpi information and image size info in inches or any other measuring system utilized and they just read the total resolution of the image in pixels such as 1024 x 768 for wallpapers but that does not mean that the information specified in the file doesn't have any use, trust me it does.
If I was there in front of you I could explain this to you completely until you said Ohh! I now see what you mean! and I could explain to you how this information can be put to use but it is as you can see it is very difficult to explain completely through a posting system such as this.
The term Dpi or Ppi IS used for other things too.
If the Dpi or Ppi term was used mostly when talking about printers yesterday that is no longer the case because it is used today all over to describe the actual physical density per inch that many devices have.
Check all over the Internet and you find it everywhere and this use is not incorrect because that is exactly what it means: Dots Per Inch meaning how many dots or pixels vertically and horizontally an image have per inch.
This means that if you have a letter size page with a line art from a vector software program such as CorelDraw or Illustrator it is resolution independent and it will be show at 96 Dpi in some displays, at 72 Dpi in others, at 132 Dpi in the Ipad and in different Dpi in different displays but if you print that same line art in a imagesetter that has 4800 Dpi it will have much greater quality of course.
If you generate a file with it at 300 Dpi at letter size its total pixel resolution would be 3300 dots vertically and 2550 Dots horizontally in portrait mode. How do you obtain this numbers? You take your 11 inches of letter size paper and multiply it by 300 Dpi and you take your 8.5 inches in the same size of paper and multiply it by 300 Dpi and you obtain a 3300 x 2550 dots or pixels image.
It is really that simple except that many printers cannot print everything from edge to edge of the paper so they have a smaller printable area and you have to be sure that your artwork fits between the printable area of your printer of choice or you have to reduce the image a little until it fits inside the printable area of the printer.
If the Dpi or Ppi term was used mostly when talking about printers yesterday that is no longer the case because it is used today all over to describe the actual physical density per inch that many devices have.
Check all over the Internet and you find it everywhere and this use is not incorrect because that is exactly what it means: Dots Per Inch meaning how many dots or pixels vertically and horizontally an image have per inch.
This means that if you have a letter size page with a line art from a vector software program such as CorelDraw or Illustrator it is resolution independent and it will be show at 96 Dpi in some displays, at 72 Dpi in others, at 132 Dpi in the Ipad and in different Dpi in different displays but if you print that same line art in a imagesetter that has 4800 Dpi it will have much greater quality of course.
If you generate a file with it at 300 Dpi at letter size its total pixel resolution would be 3300 dots vertically and 2550 Dots horizontally in portrait mode. How do you obtain this numbers? You take your 11 inches of letter size paper and multiply it by 300 Dpi and you take your 8.5 inches in the same size of paper and multiply it by 300 Dpi and you obtain a 3300 x 2550 dots or pixels image.
It is really that simple except that many printers cannot print everything from edge to edge of the paper so they have a smaller printable area and you have to be sure that your artwork fits between the printable area of your printer of choice or you have to reduce the image a little until it fits inside the printable area of the printer.
This may help clarify this subject a little.
I came up with and idea to explain this relation of total resolution, size in inches and Dpi resolution a bit better in a simpler way.
Imagine those 3 quantities (so we have 3 variables):
A- Total Resolution in pixels of an image (such as 1024 x 768)
B- Image size in any measuring system such as inches but if it is in any other measuring system remember that it has to be converted to inches because it will be compared to Dots Per Inch and the units have to be equivalent. As you know, in mathematics and science it is incorrect to compare or perform mathematics operations in dissimilar measuring units and that's why they have to be converted first.
C- Dots per inch resolution.
So again, you have:
A- Total Resolution
B- Measure in inches
C- Dpi resolution
So imagine if those 3 variables formed a triangle, so you you could have a triangle with each variable in each tip of the triangle. If you change one of the 3 variables one of the other 2 will have two change forcefully and a third will remain the same:
----A
---/--\
--B -- C
So for example, if you increase total resolution (A) either Dpi (C) will have to increase or Dpi (C) could remain the same and then the measures in inches (B) would have to increase.
If you change Dpi (C), either the measures in inches (B) or the total resolution (A) will have to change.
And if you change the measures (B), either total resolution (A) or Dpi (C) will have to change.
But if you change one and only change the other halfway the third will have to change halfway too.
And that's it. I could be wrong but I think that it pretty much goes like that. I hope that this helps.
I came up with and idea to explain this relation of total resolution, size in inches and Dpi resolution a bit better in a simpler way.
Imagine those 3 quantities (so we have 3 variables):
A- Total Resolution in pixels of an image (such as 1024 x 768)
B- Image size in any measuring system such as inches but if it is in any other measuring system remember that it has to be converted to inches because it will be compared to Dots Per Inch and the units have to be equivalent. As you know, in mathematics and science it is incorrect to compare or perform mathematics operations in dissimilar measuring units and that's why they have to be converted first.
C- Dots per inch resolution.
So again, you have:
A- Total Resolution
B- Measure in inches
C- Dpi resolution
So imagine if those 3 variables formed a triangle, so you you could have a triangle with each variable in each tip of the triangle. If you change one of the 3 variables one of the other 2 will have two change forcefully and a third will remain the same:
----A
---/--\
--B -- C
So for example, if you increase total resolution (A) either Dpi (C) will have to increase or Dpi (C) could remain the same and then the measures in inches (B) would have to increase.
If you change Dpi (C), either the measures in inches (B) or the total resolution (A) will have to change.
And if you change the measures (B), either total resolution (A) or Dpi (C) will have to change.
But if you change one and only change the other halfway the third will have to change halfway too.
And that's it. I could be wrong but I think that it pretty much goes like that. I hope that this helps.
This may help clarify this subject a little.
This post is by error. Ignore it. Is there any way to delete a post?
This post is by error. Ignore it. Is there any way to delete a post?
In the video it is clearly cropping and keeping the correct aspect ratio and geometry so it looks like 1024x1024 is correct.
tl;dr
interface lift shows 1024x1024
apple shows 1024x768
as far as rotation goes, it will just switch between 1024x768 and 768x1024..
interface lift shows 1024x1024
apple shows 1024x768
as far as rotation goes, it will just switch between 1024x768 and 768x1024..
Where does Apple state the wallpaper should be 1024x768 and what do you mean by "...it will just switch..."? Do you mean you must have a separate portrait 768x1024 and landscape 1024x768 copy of each wallpaper and it switches between them when you rotate?
If so did you determine this on an iPad simulator or from what technical info?The 1024x1024 makes sense then...
If you're in portrait, it'll be 768x1024, and if you rotate, it will then be able to move to 1024x768 without having to stretch the image; it'll just show more of it.
There wouldn't be any rotating though
It would just be a static wallpaper that doesn't move. So if you move into landscape mode, it'll just be the same wallpaper on its side.
But that's not how it works The iPad rotates the wallpaper background as you rotate the device. MEANING, it needs to be 1024x1024. The end. final. no dpi involved. no 1024x768. nothing. nada. /end thread.
But that's not how it works The iPad rotates the wallpaper background as you rotate the device. MEANING, it needs to be 1024x1024. The end. final. no dpi involved. no 1024x768. nothing. nada. /end thread.
For all those who don't understand aspect ratios or proper geometry here you go. The flowing 3 pics (original size) will show you the original wallpaper and what it should look like on the iPad if it rotates and crops correctly. Notice how the sides are cut off in portrait and the top and bottom cut off in landscape to maintain geometry and correct aspect ratio.
1st is a 1024x1024
2ed is portrait iPad
3rd is landscape iPad.
1st is a 1024x1024
2ed is portrait iPad
3rd is landscape iPad.
I've already made an example here: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/9198849/
its 1024x1024. Nothing more nothing less.
its 1024x1024. Nothing more nothing less.
Yeap, it's 1024x1024... we learned the hard way on our iPad-Wallpaper site, been cropping 768x1024.... *facepalm*
To clarify
I understand perfectly well about the wallpaper, and as a matter of fact I understood a long while ago how the 1024 x 1024 wallpaper could work. I NEVER said said that it didn't have to be 1024 x 1024 or anything like that to begin with.
I was merely asking about the different options that a person could have when making wallpapers for the machine. And precisely what people were asking here was if it had to be 1024 x 1024 always or if you were able to use another wallpaper size and if that was the case what would happen in that other case, well it seems that 1024 x 1024 is the better choice but people here didn't know because many people have not have the opportunity to work with the machine yet.
During such normal and natural discussion other related subjects came into the discussion like Dpi density and some confusion about this ensued. I though that it was appropriate to then attempt to clear the subject. There is nothing wrong about discussing that because Dpi is a term related to computer graphics and there is nothing wrong about trying to clarify that to other people even if that went a little away from the main issue of doing the wallpapers at 1024 x 1024 resolution.
There is nothing wrong about helping to educate somebody in a subject if you feel that the person or persons are confused about it and I ask what if the discussion veered into polygons and 3D? Would it be wrong? No because this is also related to computers and computers graphics and the IPad is a computer so if during discussing IPad wallpapers the subject of normal mapping in 3D graphics comes about because of its relation to the subject of computer graphics and somebody has doubts about it would it be wrong to clarify it to people? Of course not.
Because, after all what are this forums for if not to clear people's questions? The subject of Dpi density came about and in the discussion some wrong data was said about it so I decided to clear that up. Somebody back there said a comment about somebody else's post that went something like this: "finaly a wise person" but that was for a post that was refuting something I said which obviously implied that I didn't know what I was talking about and then I proceeded to explain to that same person something he didn't understand about Dpi in relation to an online photo contest.
And that's why I also proceeded to explain to those persons that I had enough experience in the subject of computer graphics to indeed know what I was talking about.
I knew that I was correct about what I was saying and I decided to defend my point of view because 1- if one knows that one is right about something one should defend one's opinion and 2- if I leave the false or incorrect datum uncontested then somebody else may get confused with it.
Now, I went to great lengths to explain and clarify the wrong data and information that was said about some computer graphic terms and I think that by doing that I did a correct service to the community and If such an opportunity arises again in a forum that's exactly what I will do again.
I understand perfectly well about the wallpaper, and as a matter of fact I understood a long while ago how the 1024 x 1024 wallpaper could work. I NEVER said said that it didn't have to be 1024 x 1024 or anything like that to begin with.
I was merely asking about the different options that a person could have when making wallpapers for the machine. And precisely what people were asking here was if it had to be 1024 x 1024 always or if you were able to use another wallpaper size and if that was the case what would happen in that other case, well it seems that 1024 x 1024 is the better choice but people here didn't know because many people have not have the opportunity to work with the machine yet.
During such normal and natural discussion other related subjects came into the discussion like Dpi density and some confusion about this ensued. I though that it was appropriate to then attempt to clear the subject. There is nothing wrong about discussing that because Dpi is a term related to computer graphics and there is nothing wrong about trying to clarify that to other people even if that went a little away from the main issue of doing the wallpapers at 1024 x 1024 resolution.
There is nothing wrong about helping to educate somebody in a subject if you feel that the person or persons are confused about it and I ask what if the discussion veered into polygons and 3D? Would it be wrong? No because this is also related to computers and computers graphics and the IPad is a computer so if during discussing IPad wallpapers the subject of normal mapping in 3D graphics comes about because of its relation to the subject of computer graphics and somebody has doubts about it would it be wrong to clarify it to people? Of course not.
Because, after all what are this forums for if not to clear people's questions? The subject of Dpi density came about and in the discussion some wrong data was said about it so I decided to clear that up. Somebody back there said a comment about somebody else's post that went something like this: "finaly a wise person" but that was for a post that was refuting something I said which obviously implied that I didn't know what I was talking about and then I proceeded to explain to that same person something he didn't understand about Dpi in relation to an online photo contest.
And that's why I also proceeded to explain to those persons that I had enough experience in the subject of computer graphics to indeed know what I was talking about.
I knew that I was correct about what I was saying and I decided to defend my point of view because 1- if one knows that one is right about something one should defend one's opinion and 2- if I leave the false or incorrect datum uncontested then somebody else may get confused with it.
Now, I went to great lengths to explain and clarify the wrong data and information that was said about some computer graphic terms and I think that by doing that I did a correct service to the community and If such an opportunity arises again in a forum that's exactly what I will do again.
A Small Correction And Some Additional Info
Back there early in this thread when I listed the Aspect ratio of different monitors I listed the aspect ratio of the IPhone incorrectly at 4:3 and this is not correct, it was a typo of mine and I can no longer correct it cause the edit part of the post is closed.
To clarify, The IPhone aspect ratio is 4:6. You see that the 3GS has a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels so if you take 480 pixels and divide them in 6 and the multiply that by 4 you get the 320 pixels.
In the new IPhone 4 which has a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels (exactly double the number of vertical and horizontal pixels which in turns makes 4 times the total amount of pixels) the same aspect ratio is preserved (4:6).
So you see Apple again mentioning the Dpi of the machine and for a reason, it is a computer display with nothing less than 336 Dpi which is way higher than the normal 72 - 120 pixels that most computer screens have.
As you can see the new screen has exactly the same size in inches so by increasing the resolution but maintaining the same size in inches the Dpi resolution of the display has been increased dramatically from 163 Dpi to 336 Dpi.
And yes a computer display with 336 Dpi will look very, very good and by the way it will look way better than the output of an old 300 Dpi laser printer and the reason for that is that it is a continuous tone 336 Dpi image and the difference in visual quality between a continuous tone 300 Dpi image (336 for IPhone 4) and a 300 Dpi solid tone such as that of an old laser is huge.
For a printer that doesn't print continuous (dots of varying hues) such as a laser or an Inkjet to reach that an equivalent of visual quality it needs far greater resolution in the thousands of Dpi.
Notice that most modern lasers are 1200 Dpi and most modern inkjets are even higher than that and that allows them to print images that look continuous but this a trick done by some special dithering which is a trick borrowed from the printing press that achieved this through lines of screen.
Inkjets do not print many hues as some of you may know, they only print 4 to about 8 colors depending on the model (most only use 4 colors CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow and key [key= black]) but those dots are really solid and they do not have varying hues. The varying hues are simulated by sheer high resolution and dithering.
That is why dye sublimation photo printers have such a good image quality despite most of them having only 300 Dpi resolution (relatively low compared to lasers and inkjets) cause they can vary the hues of each dot allowing them to print continuous tone images like photos directly as such and by printing vector lines and fonts as anti-aliased continuous tone graphics.
This is why photos in computer displays looked so good despite them having only from about 72 to 120 Dpi because even if they had that relative low Dpi density they had continuous tone pixels.
One thing that was combined with that was anti-aliasing which smoothed the edge of lines, fonts, graphic designs like vector illustrations, etc. and that made images look very good.
As for photos those have natural anti-aliasing cause at the moment of the image sensor capturing the picture it captures the variation in tones for each pixel effectively anti-aliasing the image automatically and the same happens for video cause this is repeated for every captured frame of video.
So what anti-aliasing is doing in effect is to leverage or to take advantage of the continuous tone pixel capability of computer displays to make images display better and smoother or to make images display as best as possible in a computer monitor of a given Dpi density.
My sister IPhone 3GS died cause it took some water and got damaged, boo hoo but she plans to buy an IPhone 4 soon and I can't wait to see how good it looks.
Back there early in this thread when I listed the Aspect ratio of different monitors I listed the aspect ratio of the IPhone incorrectly at 4:3 and this is not correct, it was a typo of mine and I can no longer correct it cause the edit part of the post is closed.
To clarify, The IPhone aspect ratio is 4:6. You see that the 3GS has a resolution of 320 x 480 pixels so if you take 480 pixels and divide them in 6 and the multiply that by 4 you get the 320 pixels.
In the new IPhone 4 which has a resolution of 960 x 640 pixels (exactly double the number of vertical and horizontal pixels which in turns makes 4 times the total amount of pixels) the same aspect ratio is preserved (4:6).
So you see Apple again mentioning the Dpi of the machine and for a reason, it is a computer display with nothing less than 336 Dpi which is way higher than the normal 72 - 120 pixels that most computer screens have.
As you can see the new screen has exactly the same size in inches so by increasing the resolution but maintaining the same size in inches the Dpi resolution of the display has been increased dramatically from 163 Dpi to 336 Dpi.
And yes a computer display with 336 Dpi will look very, very good and by the way it will look way better than the output of an old 300 Dpi laser printer and the reason for that is that it is a continuous tone 336 Dpi image and the difference in visual quality between a continuous tone 300 Dpi image (336 for IPhone 4) and a 300 Dpi solid tone such as that of an old laser is huge.
For a printer that doesn't print continuous (dots of varying hues) such as a laser or an Inkjet to reach that an equivalent of visual quality it needs far greater resolution in the thousands of Dpi.
Notice that most modern lasers are 1200 Dpi and most modern inkjets are even higher than that and that allows them to print images that look continuous but this a trick done by some special dithering which is a trick borrowed from the printing press that achieved this through lines of screen.
Inkjets do not print many hues as some of you may know, they only print 4 to about 8 colors depending on the model (most only use 4 colors CMYK - cyan, magenta, yellow and key [key= black]) but those dots are really solid and they do not have varying hues. The varying hues are simulated by sheer high resolution and dithering.
That is why dye sublimation photo printers have such a good image quality despite most of them having only 300 Dpi resolution (relatively low compared to lasers and inkjets) cause they can vary the hues of each dot allowing them to print continuous tone images like photos directly as such and by printing vector lines and fonts as anti-aliased continuous tone graphics.
This is why photos in computer displays looked so good despite them having only from about 72 to 120 Dpi because even if they had that relative low Dpi density they had continuous tone pixels.
One thing that was combined with that was anti-aliasing which smoothed the edge of lines, fonts, graphic designs like vector illustrations, etc. and that made images look very good.
As for photos those have natural anti-aliasing cause at the moment of the image sensor capturing the picture it captures the variation in tones for each pixel effectively anti-aliasing the image automatically and the same happens for video cause this is repeated for every captured frame of video.
So what anti-aliasing is doing in effect is to leverage or to take advantage of the continuous tone pixel capability of computer displays to make images display better and smoother or to make images display as best as possible in a computer monitor of a given Dpi density.
My sister IPhone 3GS died cause it took some water and got damaged, boo hoo
but she plans to buy an IPhone 4 soon and I can't wait to see how good it looks.