java setting resolution and print size for an Image

Question

I wrote a program that generates a BufferedImage to be displayed on the screen and then printed. Part of the image includes grid lines that are 1 pixel wide. That is, the line is 1 pixel, with about 10 pixels between lines. Because of screen resolution, the image is displayed much bigger than that, with several pixels for each line. I'd like to draw it smaller, but when I scale the image (either by using Image.getScaledInstance or Graphics2D.scale), I lose significant amounts of detail.

I'd like to print the image as well, and am dealing with the same problem. In that case, I am using this code to set the resolution:

HashPrintRequestAttributeSet set = new HashPrintRequestAttributeSet();
PrinterResolution pr = new PrinterResolution(250, 250, ResolutionSyntax.DPI);
set.add(pr);
job.print(set);

which works to make the image smaller without losing detail. But the problem is that the image is cut off at the same boundary as if I hadn't set the resolution. I'm also confused because I expected a larger number of DPI to make a smaller image, but it's working the other way.

I'm using java 1.6 on Windows 7 with eclipse.

Answer 1

It sounds like your problem is that you are making the grid lines part of the BufferedImage and it doesn't look good when scaled. Why not use drawLine() to produce the grid after your image has been drawn?