Blured vision

10th February, 2010 by Chris Tysoe

Could someone advise me how to get small online ads (120x90 pixels) looking crisp.

A good example, are the adverts featured down the right hand side on the AGDA Weekly News.

I've been recently given the task to update my office website and I'm really having difficulty achieving sharp looking type - white background or reversed.

I design the ads in Illustrator, 'save to web' and then optimise. Any help would be much appreciated.

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Probably best to drop the Illustrator file into PhotoShop, rasterize and resize as needed in PhotoShop. Illustrator's save for web has always given me fairly average results.

The Unsharp mask filter in Photoshop is your friend (Filter, Sharpen, Unsharp Mask) you'll need to fiddle with the settings to get the best results.


Posted by Nathanael Jeanneret on 16th February 2010

Thanks, Nathanael. I followed your advice but once I placed the rasterized Ai file into photoshop and resized down to 120 x 90 pixles, the image became quite pixelized - too far gone for the unsharp mask method to have an any effect. Am I missing something in the process? I would welcome your reply.
Posted by Chris Tysoe on 19th February 2010

One of the issues I have seen is when an image is reduced within DW, it can look quite pixelated on IE. Ensure that the finished image size is at the exact pixel size you are after.

The Unsharp Mask tool is your friend, but the best results are when it is used sparingly. Don't over do it.
If the image is more like a photo, as opposed ot a logo etc, maybe increasing the contrast a bit may give better impact.

Good luck!

Lc
Posted by Llewellyn Cass on 20th March 2010

One more thing.

I noticed that you are saving for web in illustrator then optimizing. Try Copying the contents from illustrator, and start a new Photoshop artwork from clipboard. Maybe this will work, so you are not saving for web twice.

Lc.
Posted by Llewellyn Cass on 20th March 2010

At that smaller size, you only have very limited information you can get into the space (in other words you may just be running up against the physical limitations of that size) - Chris' advice about rebuilding it in PhotoShop is good advice. You'll run up against the same issues, but you'll see them immediately as you're working, whereas when you're designing in Illustrator you won't actually see them until you get to rasterize it out in Photoshop.

Sorry, not sure if that's much help.
Posted by Nathanael Jeanneret on 9th May 2010

Sorry - that should of said that Llewellyn's advice was good.

Hrm, the comments need an edit button!
Posted by Nathanael Jeanneret on 9th May 2010