Trying to understand "Link information"

[curtis_sayers@adobeforums.com]

When I place a bitmap graphic into an Illustrator document, then get the link info by double-clicking it in the links palette, I see an odd percentage number under Transform: Scale. I'm trying to get an idea of how much bigger to resample the graphic in Photoshop so it won't print pixelated (like I would do in Indesign.) What do I do? Any help is appreciated

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

This is the info you sort of get in AI since AI reads the image at 72 ppi and your image is of a higher resolution at the size you are going to use, except for web usage

AI reads the whole file at 72ppi without resampling it so if you had a image that was 300 ppi at say 4x5 inches it sees it at 20.833 x 16.667 at 72 ppi so then your scale is 24%. All you have to do is make sure that the original image is at the correct dimensions and resolution of your output device.

[curtis_sayers@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Wade. I guess I was hoping for a quick way to know how much to resample the original image to attain the correct dimensions for the output device. I have the graphic placed into a frame (cropped), so it's not as simple as making the original file dimensions the correct size.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

Cropped would not be a problem resize on the other hand would be. But you really want to resize the image in an application such as Photoshop and not in Illustrator.

[jonf@adobeforums.com]

curtiss-- I'm probably misunderstanding you, but it sounds like you're planning to resample the image in Photoshop to a higher resolution? This won't help any. It will add file size, but you can't increase the image clarity by resampling up. All you do is spread your pixels further apart and fill in the gaps with duplicates of the next closest pixel.

I think you probably know this, but it just sounded kind of suspicious the way it was described. 8-o