Samples of scans of business cards printed from files saved with varying quality settings.

The originals of this set were generated at 254 pixels per inch
 

It was recently pointed out to me that if I saved the templates for my business cards in .jpg format (as I had been doing), the quality of the cards would be significantly degraded when I printed them. To test this, I loaded a master card which had been saved as .psd and printed it on high-quality matte photo paper. I then saved it is a .jpg file, using Photoshop quality 10, and again using quality 8. I then reloaded these files into Photoshop and printed a test print from each.

To my naked eye the three prints were indistinguishable, but when I examined them with an 8 power magnifier the quality 8 print was significantly fly spotted, the quality 10 print had a few spots and the .psd print had none.

To demonstrate this effect I scanned the three prints at 600 dots per inch, selected one word from each, and combined them in the image above. This image was saved at maximum quality. In each case the word ‘Richard’ is 23mm wide on the original card.

I normally print my cards on standard card stock rather than high-quality photo paper, and with this the letters are just noticeably fuzzier, but the fly spots are almost undetectable, even with the magnifier.

In all the samples above the text is fuzzier than I had anticipated. After thinking about this for a while, I remembered that I had laid out the original master templates at 254 pixels per inch, but the native mode of the printer was 600 pixels per inch, and I wondered if this could have been the problem.

Samples of scans of business cards printed from files saved with varying quality settings.

The originals of this set were generated at 300 or 600 pixels per inch

 

I made two new master templates at 600 and at 300 pixels per inch, and made a new set of test prints from these. The outline of the letters is significantly cleaner in the prints made with a resolution of 300 pixels per inch, and substantially cleaner in the prints made at 600 pixels per inch, as can be seen above. There is also significantly less JPEG noise, even with a quality setting of seven.

(I have been experimenting with simulating deckle finish grey card by superimposing a scan of a sample of the card on the cards. This is the cause of the dark grey background on some of the above samples. It looks much better at normal resolution.)

it is certainly advisable to use a resolution which matches the printer, and if you really want the sharpest possible printing it is worth going to 600 pixels per inch. However it must be pointed out again that I cannot detect any difference between any of these prints by eye, and they are all perfectly adequate for normal use.

 

The cards were printed on a Canon S. 800 printer, using ‘High’ print quality, and were scanned with an Epson 2480 photo scanner, in colour mode at 600 dots per inch.