export to PNG/raster is jaggier than desired

[JohnGreene1]

i'm a new arcgisPro user.

i am trying to export a world borders map to raster format.  i used high image quality and high pixel resolution, but even so, the resulting raster image is pretty jaggy.  i'm using the 'light gray canvas' image of the world as the basemap.  i hope to export the borders shown there to raster.  

can anyone walk me through how to export and preserve pretty good resolution when exporting to raster?  i'm fine to have a giant output file - it can be 5000x10000 pixels (for the whole world).  something around 2000x4000 would have enough res 

[JayantaPoddar]

Try changing the page setup to a larger page...

Page setup—Layouts | ArcGIS for Desktop 

[JohnGreene1]

thanks for the suggestion, jayanta.  i tried it, but the results didn't improve much.  here are some screenshots to illustrate the problem.  i wonder if i am just not using the tools right.  i added a D size layout (very big paper).  i added the map (light gray canvas) to the layout.  i exported using ping and 1000 DPI.  that should give something like 24,000 pixels in height since D size is 24".  i used 8 bit gray scale output.  the file is very big (16MB), but the png image is not good.  here are screenshots of the png export (first image here) and the screen i see in arcgispro map view (2nd image).  .  

the export seems to blur the image a lot, even though i choose high DPI.  the png file is 16MB, so the problem is not a lack of pixels. i tried various other output formats - bmp, jpg - but had similar results (both are a bit worse than png).  it seems like i must not have the export set up right, but there are only a few things to pick.  

i tried with very high (3000) DPI and E size layout and still got poor results.  the output png file was 190MB but still the image is pretty blurry.

i'd appreciate any suggestions you have

thanks!

j

[TheodoreF]

I'm having this exact same problem. ArcGIS Pro 2.2.

Exported images look terrible and blurry compared to how they look in data view.

[JohnGreene1]

i kept trying things.  i loaded a different borders dataset.  it looked very similar, but had a different name.  this one is called 'world borders'.  anyway, then i tried exporting it from arcmap as png, with 400 DPI, about 6.8k x 3.6k, and '8 bit palette' as the format.  i get a pretty good-looking png file from this.  it is only 240kB.  i'm pretty happy with this one, so i think i'll call this issue done.  i don't know why i was getting such different results with other formats (or datasets).

[JohnGreene1]

i was curious, so i tried different DPI with same map loaded. (and same 8 bit palette/PNG format).   it works well up to 800 DPI, but if i put in DPI 1000 or higher, the output becomes messed up - blurry and jaggy both, like above exported image.  so there is some kind of issue with the exporter that if given very high DPI it gets confused.  i was figuring higher DPI would always be the same or better, but not so.  the file size is not even that big at 800 DPI and the res is good enough for what i'm doing.  i guess if someone really wanted super res there would be a problem (with the raster export).  but for now i'm all set.  

thanks very much for your help.

j

[MaribethPrice]

If you want world boundaries, then exporting a raster is NOT the way to get them.  You should be able to find a shapefile or feature class (with the borders as lines or polygons) in a variety of places, including ArcGIS Online, Esri Data and Maps, etc., the ArcGIS Pro tutorial data, etc.

[TheodoreF]

Any solutions to the original problem? without resorting to using ArcMap.

My Pro exports are very blurry (apart from map elements). No matter what DPI I set it to.

[MaribethPrice]

I can't replicate the problem; my 400 dpi jpeg test layout using the grey basemap looks okay.  I am using 2.1.1 currently; maybe it is a new issue with 2.2?

[TheodoreF]

Compare that export with how it looks in Data view though. Maybe that's not the best basemap to use for this case, but I've always seen blurry Layout view/exported basemaps in Pro.