Bitmap, grayscale, or RGB?

[Deleted]

Hi MMO-Champion,

I'm supposed to make a 59 x 84 cm poster for my exam project, and I really want it to look nice, unlike those horrible pictures you get by using MS paint. Now, the only 3 color modes I can choose between are bitmap, grayscale, and RBG, and I remember reading somewhere that one of those look better on screen than they do in real life.

So, what I'm basically asking you guys is: which color mode looks best on a poster in real life?

Thanks in advance.

[Symphonic]

RGB, of course!

besides, what's important is DPI - if you're making a large poster you'll probably want something with about 300 DPI so that you don't get a pixelated look. Only thing is with that high a resolution you need some high quality pictures/artwork for the poster.

[Biged781]

1. Bitmap is an image format, it has nothing to do with color directly.
2. Grayscale is contains only shades of gray, so if you need "color"... obviously the wrong choice.
3. RGB gives you a larger range of color... see #2 above.

[Bearshield]

I could be wrong, but I was of the impression that RGB was for online and CMYK was for print? Or do I have that backwards?

[Pymeran]

If your image includes text, I would say go with 400 dpi, otherwise 300 dpi. Also, make sure to save your final image in TIFF format, not in jpeg or gif, because these formats -although small in size- loose information as you save the file which leads to poor printing quality. Good luck with the presentation!

---------- Post added 2012-03-20 at 01:07 PM ----------

I could be wrong, but I was of the impression that RGB was for online and CMYK was for print? Or do I have that backwards?

They normally translate RGB to CMYK at the printing press. The quality of the print shouldn't change after the conversion but some colors may not look the same. So, if this is a "color" oriented project -like an art class-, I would convert to CMKY using Photoshop or Illustrator and make sure that the colors look right in the final version before the printing.

[Deleted]

Thanks a lot, everyone. Just to be sure, is dpi pixels per inch?

[Remilia]

Thanks a lot, everyone. Just to be sure, is dpi pixels per inch?

Basically.

You'd want to do what pyme said, save it as a TIFF or PNG or any other lossless quality as jpg and gif (worse offender) has a compression method. Poor compression can result in artifacts.

You'd go with RGB alpha channels and for PNGs you'd want to save at 24bit PNG.

[Theodon]

Give a grayscale image a go. If you put the dpi really high for a small image they can really look decent. Most graphical drawing programs can grayscale an image at the click of a button, so it's easy to check out. You might be surprised!

[Pert]

I could be wrong, but I was of the impression that RGB was for online and CMYK was for print? Or do I have that backwards?

Something like that. Most printers can convert RGB to CMYK, though.