Comics on the new iPad

Stefan · **Posted:** Mon Mar 12, 2012 1:38 pm

So, the new iPad is out and it has an incredible resolution of 2048x1536 pixels. It seems most apps need to be reworked to make full usage of this resolution. That made me think about comixology. What size are the comic pages? Are they big enough to make full use of the 2048 pixels?

KarlH · **Joined:** Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:58 pm **Posts:** 65

They are not. In fact, they're often not big enough to make full use of even the original 1024x768 iPad screen. In so-called "guided mode" (zoomed in) there is already a noticeable blurring on my old device, which means I've gone beyond the limits of the image resolution. But this isn't the app's fault. It's the downloaded content.

Stefan · **Posted:** Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:30 am

That's what I figured. I just read an article about this problem. To make full usage of the resolution, pages would at least need to have a size of 2048 x 1536 pixels. That's four times the size of the current iPad2. That means the file size will quadruple – and old eMags and digital comics might look like crap on the new display.

Here's a link to the article

Savage Raven · **Posted:** Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:29 am

I had wondered how digital comics would handle that. Upscaling text for e reading is no big deal, but with images you have resolution considerations. Bumping up the resolution is like bumping up the graphics processing power.. it's one of those stats that'll probably always keep going up until they hit some ceiling of human ability (I'm sure there's only so many pixels we can perceive.. lol). Does that mean constantly having to rescale ebooks?

Seems like a bit of a pain in the ass...But I'm sure someone will come up with a clever work around.

KarlH · **Joined:** Thu Aug 11, 2011 12:58 pm **Posts:** 65

The new iPad, held at normal tablet operating distance, has roughly the maximum resolution that the human eye can distinguish. It doesn't need to get any higher than that.

But the size of the image files is a problem. A while ago I was toying with the idea of a comics-specific image format, where the line art would be handled separately from the colors (similar to the layers in a Photoshop file, but more optimized). An inked page as a bitmap compresses very efficiently and doesn't take much storage space even if the image is huge, whereas the colors don't need to be as precise and could be stored as a JPEG at perhaps 150 dpi or less. However, these days the line art isn't just black. You often have color effects in there as well, so these two conceptual layers are a little too intertwined for this to work.

Stefan · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:06 am

So far I´ve only heard good things about comics on the new iPad. Chris Eliopoulos posted on Facebook that they look Awesome and maybe better than print.

My question: If I have the Comixology app and buy a couple of books - can I read them when I´m offline? I´m thinking about getting the WiFi only version and it would suck If I can only read my books when I´m online. With Graphicly I think you can download a PDF (or something) of the books you buy, which I´d prefer.

murch · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2012 2:14 am

Stefan wrote:

My question: If I have the Comixology app and buy a couple of books - can I read them when I´m offline?

Yes.

Stefan · **Posted:** Wed Mar 28, 2012 6:57 am

Thx, good to know

djk300 · **Joined:** Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:03 pm **Posts:** 253

How many comics can you fit on a Ipad if thats all you put on? just curious.....

Maybe a better question is on a 16 gig how many, on a 64 gig? etc....

Stefan · **Posted:** Thu Mar 29, 2012 12:46 pm

So yesterday I bought the new iPad. I´ve been meaning to get one ever since the first one came out and it´s awesome. I´m currently downloading loads of apps and I´ve read my first comics on it and it´s just great.

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