Sharpening for Web

[Ultra Magnus]

Quick question regarding shaprening photos for web.

I've got a fancy shmancy new laptop (for my new job) and it's got the new Dell wuxga whatever photo someting high end monitor. It's a 17" model, which comes out to about 14.5" wide, and it's set at 1920 x 1200 pixels. So, it's pretty a bright crisp picture.

So, when I rezise to like 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 (whatever) and sharpen them 'till they look good on my screen, will they look good on other peoples' monitors too? Or will the be soft or over sharpened? I ask because I figure most people don't run small screens at 1920 x 1200.

Thanks.
BM

[GB1]

I think there may be slight differences when viewing at different screen resolutions but I don't know if they're that significant. If you have good eyes, I think an 800 x 600 image that looks sharp on a 1920 x 1200 monitor will basically look sharp on a 1024 x 768 monitor too. The only way to tell for sure might be to try it.

[Medley]

BM, you touched on the important issue when you said that most people don't run small screens at 1920x1200. It's not the resolution itself that makes a difference, it's the ratio of that resolution to the width of the screen. In other words, it's still about the ppi.

Gone are the days when the average screen resolution was 72 ppi. I have the same size screen as you, and with our screens 72 ppi would equate to 1152x720. Today the average screen resolution is 100-120 ppi. To determine your actual screen resolution, simply divide the number of pixels in the horizontal resolution by the width of the screen, in inches. So at 1920x1200, your 14.5 inch screen has a resolution of around 132 ppi (1920 divided by 14.5).

As it turns out, for our screens a 1440x852 resolution gives us an actual resolution of about 99 ppi, and the 1680x1050 mode gives us an actual resolution of about 115 ppi. Personally, I use the 1680x1050 mode for web work. But either setting would be ok, and would allow most folks to see the work the way you intended it.

Hope this helps.

- Joe U.