
(Keep in mind, some printers may print at a smaller or larger DPI, so you'll want to be aware of that when sizing for prints.) Get a 300 DPI file So your image file should contain the same number of pixels per inch that your printer is going to be printing per inch. SEE: How to Make a High Resolution Image for Print or Web Understand DPI and PPIģ00 DPI means “dots per inch” as in: the printer is going to spit out 300 little dots of ink for every inch of your photograph. This resizing does bad things to image quality, especially if the image you are sending to the printer is a JPG because JPGs will not maintain the pixel integrity of your image as well as a PNG file type will. If you send too many it has to shrink the image smaller. If you send too few pixels to the printer it will just make pixels up in an effort to fill the page. To get the best resolution when printing, you need to signal to your printer how many pixels per inch (PPI) you want it to print. It's basic math-just divide the number of pixels by the DPI.Here are some guidelines for getting the best quality prints from your photos: Start with the right size and shape Print the same image at 180 dpi and it will be 10 inches wide. So, if you print an 1800 pixel wide image at 300 dots-per-inch, the printed image will be six inches wide.

A pixel in a digital image is equivalent to a dot in a print. Most good home printers can output at 300 dpi, which is the recommended minimum for high-quality printing, and professional printers much higher. In simple terms, a higher DPI means a higher quality print. You need to understand how DPI works because it controls the two most important things in printing: The DPI setting determines how many dots the printer drops onto every square inch of the image-300 dpi means 300 dots of ink, while 150 dpi is half as much. DPI stands for "dots-per-inch," and is a specification for printing and for setting the print resolution of an image.Ī print is made from millions of tiny dots of ink.
