iPad 3's Higher Resolution

iPad 3's Higher Resolution

Yes, the iPad 3's higher resolution screen should be a thing to see — literally. I haven't yet, so I can't offer any first hand reports. I can, however, address a few issues relative to LensWork Extended and our strategy for this new device.

Because we choose to publish in the scalable PDF format, one of the advantages we have is that there is no native "screen resolution size" for a PDF. The page is scalable — which means literally that it can accommodate itself to any display size. Sort of. Let me explain just a bit. This might also explain why we are so committed to PDF as the format of choice for our publications.

There are several areas of concern in this discussion of scaling PDFs for display, each with its own rationale.

Aspect Ratio

Unlike web pages, PDFs are constructed on fixed page dynamics. A PDF can be scaled up in size (or down), but in all cases the resulting display is still based on the display of discreet page units. Just as in a printed book, the aspect ratio of a PDF page is fixed when it is created. This is why we produce two portable versions of LensWork Extended. The iPad version is based on a 4:3 aspect ratio. Android displays can vary a bit, but they are all pretty close to 16:10 aspect ratio. We produce the two versions of LensWork Extended so readers will have an experience that fills their screen — if not perfectly, then darned close to a perfect fit. This has nothing to do with the image resolution, but is a fundamental factor when publishing for a portable device. So, PDF pages are a fixed aspect ratio, but not a fixed size.

Fonts and Vector Graphics

Unlike text in a Photoshop image, all the text (fonts) in a PDF are vector graphics. Vector graphic components can scale up and down in size without degrading. So, as the pages in a PDF document are scaled up or down in size to fit the screen resolution, the text always remains sharp and clear no matter what scale size you are using to view the page. Text in our PDF documents will always look sharp and clear no matter the resolution of the device you are using.

Rasterized Images — e.g., Photographs

Rasterized images (all photographs are rasterized images) are another matter. On a web page, the images are displayed according to their actual pixel dimensions. For example, here is a screen shot of a recent image from this blog.

You can see from the information box at the right that the image is 603px wide. Because my monitor displays visual data at the rate of 96 pixels per inch, when I measure the size of the image on my screen with a ruler, it measures 6.33" wide (603px/96ppi=6.33in) . If your monitor displays at 72 pixels per inch, you would measure 8.37". All well and good.

But, these images cannot be scaled without problems — especially they cannot be scaled larger. Doing so, in a web browser for example, will make a larger image (and text), but the quality of the image will degrade as the pixel density of the image on the screen drops to a lower density than the native pixel density of your monitor. That is to say, you'll decrease the pixel density from, say 96ppi down to something less than this, thereby forcing each pixel in the image to cover more than one pixel on the screen. This is known colloquially as "pixelization" and appears as a "blocky," rough-edged artifact that reduces detail and blurs the image.

   

Essentially, the best approach is to always have enough pixels in the image to match the pixel dimension in the display. For an iPad 1 or 2, because the display is 1024x768, and image that is 1024x768 will fill the screen, pixel for pixel — each pixel in the image creating a single pixel on the display. What you see is limited to the pixel density of the display.

Enter the iPad 3 display challenge

So, what happens when you display a 1024x768 image on the new Retina display of an iPad 3? The engineers have two choices. They can either display the image using one pixel in the image to cover one pixel in the display, or they can stretch the image to the 1024 pixels in the image cover all 2048 in the Retina display. In the first strategy, the image will look very "Retina sharp" but it won't fill the screen; it will be small. In the second strategy, the image will fill the screen, but won't look as sharp as an image created at full "Retina screen" resolution. It will start to degrade like the example above — not as dramatically, but visibly.

LensWork Extended already has additional resolution

Because LensWork Extended is created as scalable PDF pages, what you see is scaled to fit the monitor size. It will fill the available display size even if that means scaling up or down to make it fit. Scaling down is never a problem; scaling up can be if it forces images to drop below the pixel density of the native display device.

From the very beginning, we've design LensWork Extended to include more resolution than any display was capable of. In essence, LensWork Extended is always scaled down — on purpose — to fit the display. You may not be aware of this, but it's a feature we built in with every PDF we publish. We did so specifically so our readers could zoom in on an image without pixelization occurring. As they zoom in, there is no pixelization until you reach the threshold where the zoom factor exceeds the resolution of your display device. It's a neat trick that allows higher quality images even if a reader wants a closer look to see details.

We produce two different resolutions of LensWork Extended — the Disc Edition and the Online Edition are at 2,667x 1666 — already higher than the Retina display; our current iPad Edition (1250x1666) and the Android Edition (2000x 1666) are a bit less. Even so, as you can see, our existing iPad Edition already exceeds the resolution of both iPad 1 and iPad 2 screens. These files viewed on a new iPad 3 will look far better than you might expect because of this additional resolution. Our iPad Edition PDFs are still a bit shy of a full resolution Retina display, but will be far better than if this additional resolution were not part of our strategy.

Will an increase from 1250 to 2048 make a difference in the Retina display? Possibly; we're not sure yet. We're now looking into an increase in resolution for the iPad 3 and whether or not there is any visible advantage to doing so. The additional resolution will require a sizable increase in file size that may cramp some users with limited storage. Downloads will take longer and page flips might be slower. They certainly would be for people who choose not to upgrade to the iPad 3. If there isn't enough visible payoff over our already higher resolution PDFs, we probably won't increase the resolution. If, on the other hand, the differences are visible and important, we might consider it. We'll keep you posted.

Comments

[Stephen Best]

Shouldn't the Android Edition be 1000x1666 (or thereabouts)?

I appreciate your foresight in provisioning for the future. I bought an iPad 3 (my first tablet) primarily to view LensWork and it looks great, as do my own images scaled (exactly) to the 2048x1536 display. I have in mind making some PDFs of my own ...

[Angel Ramos]

Ultimately Apple has given us a new model that won’t feel any faster, but will be far more visually appealing to use, and sets the stage for what I feel will be the real performance increase next year.

There will be nothing at the iPad 3 release date from the Android camp that will match this tablet, and until that happens, if you need a tablet, while I still have my reserves, this is undoubtedly the tablet to get until we hear answers from the Android camp.

That will likely be in the form of the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity, but with an availability date still unknown, the iPad 3 will get to enjoy this leap to market for quite some time.

Angel recently posted ">http://fromjaystobrooks.com/should-we-get-excited-for-the-ipa//"> 3 Things You Need to Know About the iPad 3

[Godfrey DiGiorgi]

My colleague at the office received his new iPad on Friday and brought it in to show me today. The new display is definitely a big plus for anyone working with high quality images ... for instance, the web-rez image I have linked below is an approximately 1K x 1K pixel image and looks "ok" on a good display. Putting a 1500x1500 pixel version of the same image on the new iPad gave a very satisfying, perceptual improvement in detail and sharpness.

It's good to hear that Lenswork's iPad editions are almost up to this spec already. With my iPad 2, I'm often enlarging the photo to uncover detail resolution ... with the new iPad, I found it wasn't necessary to do so most of the time. Ah, the tireless Hamster Wheel of Progress ... ;-)

Happily, my iPad 2 is still satisfying my needs and will through most of the coming year. I'll upgrade to the new model when it becomes 18 months old, next September.

[John Acurso]

Maybe I am just paranoid, but why do we want to give our images away at such high resolutions? Most of us keep our images relatively small on our website to avoid having them easily lifted for other uses--although it happens all the time. It would be easy to create a 20 inch+ print of an image from one that would fill a 2048 pixel width and it wouldn't be bad quality, believe me, I know as I have made impeccable 20 inch square prints from my iPhone files that were 1936 pixels square.

I realize there are different thoughts about those that would steal and use images, for personal decor, but when a NYT columnist suggest doing just that to decorate your home, with the tag that it isn't copyright violation?!?, people get a sense of entitlement.

Anyway, I would seriously like to hear the counter argument to this and why one would want to give away their images in such high resolution.

[Kathy Eyster]

Just a related note: Facebook announced that they will be providing "full screen" display of photos (up to 2048 pixels on the longest edge). This is another instance of providing an exciting on-screen viewing experience that potentially endangers copyright protections. I for one intend to continue to post only 800 pixel images to FB.

[Matt Kerr]

I shall begin with the caveat that I have only just bought my first lenswork magazine. That said, I definetly support using the full resolution of the new iPad. It is why I and many other bought it. I am content just to buy the unextended PDF but will buy the iPad specific version only if it uses my iPads resolution. I am sure I don't speak for everyone but I am more than happy to go for the extra download. Thanks and keep up the good work.

[ipadbags.com]

That server is NOT reporting your actual resolution, but the resolution that Safari is telling the server via the User Agent data that it sends.