Was showing some of my shots to someone who is into photography big time and she noticed that the dpi for my photos is only 72. She mentioned that I need mine to be something like 300 and I am panicking.
Are my photos this far not good quality to print because of it? I am not aware of any way to change it in my Canon 400D, am I right about that? How can I change it?
I do not have Photoshop and download the photos through the Canon installed program. I process them in Ribbet and Picmonkey and occasionally in Photoscape. I shoot in Large format as I tried Raw and I could not/ did not know how to access the photos in that format.
Secondly, I'm not even going to try to explain the difference between DPI/PPI and pixel dimensions. I sort of understand it unless I have to think about it, and if I try and explain it I'll end up confusing myself! So I'm going to tag Alex @abirkill because he'll be able to explain it in a way that makes perfect sense.
dpi means Dots Per Inch. The more dots the better your picture will be looking. But. Your images won't change if you scale for 72 to 300 (depending on the print, above 225 will be fine). The print will be smaller tho. Lets say you have an image 2600 wide. It will take 2600 pixels on your screen. If you print it on paper at 300 dpi it will be (2600/300) 8.6 inches wide. Printed at 200 dpi, it will be 13 inches wide but less sharp to the eye.
If you print an image don't use the one you uploaded to 365 because that one is downscaled (only Ace members have the original images stored).
Use the original from your computer instead.
for printing a minimum of dpi 300, for web uploads the standard is 72 dpi, not sure the editing program you use, but you can save your photos twice (one at both) and not worry. I use Corel After Shot Pro for my raw images and it is a great starter version of light room for a lot less money (under $100 bucks). As you get more involved in photography you will want to print larger and control your photos more. It is a quick and easy investment and you will love shooting in RAW (I default my dpi at 300 in the program and crop at 11x14 to preserve as much information as possible. The photos you saw on the architectural photo discussion last week were all done in that program.
Firstly, no, your pictures aren't ruined, but your friend may have got a little bit misled by a lot of the conflicting advice on the Internet (some of which used to be more relevant than it is today). As long as you haven't resized the images (left them at the native camera resolution, minus any cropping), your pictures will print absolutely fine.
To begin with, we need to understand the difference between dots per inch (DPI) and pixels per inch (PPI) -- a lot of people think these are the same thing, and they're absolutely not.
Dots per inch is a term specific to printing, and is used to specify how many dots a given printer can print on an inch of paper. More expensive printers can print more dots per inch than cheaper printers. A good photo printer will print at 300 dots per inch (or higher), which is considered a resolution high enough that the human eye cannot see the individual dots of ink, even close up. (You'll notice that Photoshop, and other properly-written software, never refers to DPI, as it's a printer attribute, not an image attribute).
Pixels per inch, on the other hand, is an attribute that is set on an image file. It indicates the size that the image *should* be displayed at. Note that this is just a setting in a saved file, the same as the setting that says what date the photo was taken. You can change the PPI setting without in any way altering the photograph content *or resolution*.
If you want to do this in Photoshop, it's dead simple -- simply go to Image -> Image Size, uncheck the 'resample image' box (more on that later), and enter a new value into the 'pixels per inch' box. You'll notice that the resolution of the image doesn't change (once you've unchecked the 'resample image' box, it *can't* be changed), and that the photo looks exactly as it did before when you're done (which it is).
Back in the old days of printing, (and even today if you are doing certain professional printing/publishing work), setting the PPI accurately was important -- it would determine what size your file was printed. Take an image that is 1000x1000 pixels in size. If you set a PPI of 100, then that says your image should be printed at 10x10 inch size. If you set a PPI of 200, that says your image should be printed at 5x5 inch size.
However, both of those would be printed on a printer with 300 dots per inch resolution -- this means in both of those cases, the printer was printing more detail than the file contained. A long time ago, this was a Bad Thing, because it meant that the printer would have to resize the image, and generally it did a pretty awful job. (This was also the case if your image had a PPI value larger than that of the printer's DPI value).
Therefore, what you had to do was determine (by asking the printer) what DPI their printer used, and then resample your image accordingly. So if you had a printer with 300dpi, a 1000x1000 image, and you wanted it printed 5 inches across, you would resample your image to increase it to 1500x1500 pixels (using a nice resampling algorithm, rather than the 'nearest pixel' algorithm used in most printers of the day), and set the PPI at 300. This file would then be printed by the printer at 5 inches across (because you have 1500 pixels and 300 pixels per inch), without needing the printer to resize it -- there was a match between the PPI of the photo and the DPI of the printer.
This sounds complicated, but again is really easy in Photoshop -- simply go to Image -> Image Size, leave the 'resample image' box checked, and enter the required parameters into the second set of boxes -- for example, a PPI of 300 and an image width of 5 inches. You'll notice that Photoshop will resize the image so that it will be exactly 1500 pixels wide.
Well, that's all very complicated, isn't it. The good news is, *absolutely none of that matters any more for photographers*! Hurrah! (Although it can help if you print at home...)
While that knowledge is still very important if you are, for example, working at a newspaper, for photographers who just want to print their photos, you no longer need to care about any of that -- any photo printing company today doesn't care in the slightest what PPI setting your image has.
Today, photo printing has been made a lot easier -- you simply provide your file and tell the printing company that you want it printed at (for example) 16"x12". This makes far more sense for consumers (and most professionals, for that matter). The printing company will then do any scaling necessary to make your image match the printer's resolution before printing it, making sure it comes out as good as it can do. You can set your PPI setting to 72, 300, 1, 42929, or anything else, and the printing company will simply ignore it, and will print the image to fit on the paper size you've specified. (If you don't believe me, get two prints done, one with your default file, and one changing just the PPI value using the first method above, unchecking the 'resample image' box). They will be identical.
Now if you really want to, you can still resample your image to 300 dots per inch (or another DPI setting specified by your printing company) at the print size you require (using the second method in Photoshop as documented above, and leaving the 'resample image' box checked). However, you better be very sure that you want to. Firstly, are you absolutely convinced that you're resampling the image using the correct algorithm? A good printing company will resample the image to maximise sharpness without introducing artefacts -- if you aren't doing that better than they are, your image will look worse when printed. Secondly, if there's any discrepancy in what you think their printer's DPI is and what it actually is, they'll have to resample it again anyway -- and each resampling process always loses detail. It's almost always safer to leave the printing company to do any necessary resampling unless you know exactly what you're doing.
So about the only time any of this is any use is when you are printing at home, and it's all down to you to maximise your own image quality. Now, to be honest, these days even home printers do a pretty awesome job of this automatically, but to maximise quality, this is the one time where it probably is worth resampling in Photoshop -- again by using the second method and going to Image -> Image Size, leave 'resample image' checked, choose a PPI of 300, and set the document size values to the size (in inches or centimeters) you want the image to be printed. When you go to print in Photoshop, you'll see that the image will be printed at exactly the size you specified.
The final thing to remember is that, if you've ever used the second resize method, where you leave the 'resample image' box checked, you have altered your image file. *Do not save this over your original file -- it is lower quality*. Always keep the original edited file (with the resolution as it came out of the camera), and base any printer-related adjustments off this file each time. As I said above, if you've resampled the image at any point, even if the final resolution was higher than the original file's resolution, you have lost detail, and you should always start from the original image again next time (unless you are printing at the exact same size).
Wow, longest ever? Questions, as always, welcomed.
technically dpi is a printer only term referring to how many dots of ink per inch is used. When your talking about your file size its ppi (pixels per inch) as there are no dots in your digital files. The 300dpi thing came from offset printers. Because of screen angles images printed best if they were 300ppi in the output size. Because of the way pictures are printed now you can get away with less resolution and get great results. I get prints 20 x30 out of my 12 mp camera that look amazing. Most photo printing places recommend at least 150 ppi bare min. Of course more is better but i have gotten prints done at 200ppi and 300ppi and can see no difference in them. Of course many other things affect how well a picture will reproduce most importantly proper exposure, how sharp they are to begin with, if they have been over processed etc. You can change the resolution in photoshop but that basically adds pixels it thinks is right to make it bigger often resulting in color shift and a less sharp image. That is another whole topic in of it self lol.
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Secondly, I'm not even going to try to explain the difference between DPI/PPI and pixel dimensions. I sort of understand it unless I have to think about it, and if I try and explain it I'll end up confusing myself! So I'm going to tag Alex @abirkill because he'll be able to explain it in a way that makes perfect sense.
If you print an image don't use the one you uploaded to 365 because that one is downscaled (only Ace members have the original images stored).
Use the original from your computer instead.
This is a really good website for working out the max size prints you can get from an image without losing quality.
Firstly, no, your pictures aren't ruined, but your friend may have got a little bit misled by a lot of the conflicting advice on the Internet (some of which used to be more relevant than it is today). As long as you haven't resized the images (left them at the native camera resolution, minus any cropping), your pictures will print absolutely fine.
To begin with, we need to understand the difference between dots per inch (DPI) and pixels per inch (PPI) -- a lot of people think these are the same thing, and they're absolutely not.
Dots per inch is a term specific to printing, and is used to specify how many dots a given printer can print on an inch of paper. More expensive printers can print more dots per inch than cheaper printers. A good photo printer will print at 300 dots per inch (or higher), which is considered a resolution high enough that the human eye cannot see the individual dots of ink, even close up. (You'll notice that Photoshop, and other properly-written software, never refers to DPI, as it's a printer attribute, not an image attribute).
Pixels per inch, on the other hand, is an attribute that is set on an image file. It indicates the size that the image *should* be displayed at. Note that this is just a setting in a saved file, the same as the setting that says what date the photo was taken. You can change the PPI setting without in any way altering the photograph content *or resolution*.
If you want to do this in Photoshop, it's dead simple -- simply go to Image -> Image Size, uncheck the 'resample image' box (more on that later), and enter a new value into the 'pixels per inch' box. You'll notice that the resolution of the image doesn't change (once you've unchecked the 'resample image' box, it *can't* be changed), and that the photo looks exactly as it did before when you're done (which it is).
Back in the old days of printing, (and even today if you are doing certain professional printing/publishing work), setting the PPI accurately was important -- it would determine what size your file was printed. Take an image that is 1000x1000 pixels in size. If you set a PPI of 100, then that says your image should be printed at 10x10 inch size. If you set a PPI of 200, that says your image should be printed at 5x5 inch size.
However, both of those would be printed on a printer with 300 dots per inch resolution -- this means in both of those cases, the printer was printing more detail than the file contained. A long time ago, this was a Bad Thing, because it meant that the printer would have to resize the image, and generally it did a pretty awful job. (This was also the case if your image had a PPI value larger than that of the printer's DPI value).
Therefore, what you had to do was determine (by asking the printer) what DPI their printer used, and then resample your image accordingly. So if you had a printer with 300dpi, a 1000x1000 image, and you wanted it printed 5 inches across, you would resample your image to increase it to 1500x1500 pixels (using a nice resampling algorithm, rather than the 'nearest pixel' algorithm used in most printers of the day), and set the PPI at 300. This file would then be printed by the printer at 5 inches across (because you have 1500 pixels and 300 pixels per inch), without needing the printer to resize it -- there was a match between the PPI of the photo and the DPI of the printer.
This sounds complicated, but again is really easy in Photoshop -- simply go to Image -> Image Size, leave the 'resample image' box checked, and enter the required parameters into the second set of boxes -- for example, a PPI of 300 and an image width of 5 inches. You'll notice that Photoshop will resize the image so that it will be exactly 1500 pixels wide.
Well, that's all very complicated, isn't it. The good news is, *absolutely none of that matters any more for photographers*! Hurrah! (Although it can help if you print at home...)
While that knowledge is still very important if you are, for example, working at a newspaper, for photographers who just want to print their photos, you no longer need to care about any of that -- any photo printing company today doesn't care in the slightest what PPI setting your image has.
Today, photo printing has been made a lot easier -- you simply provide your file and tell the printing company that you want it printed at (for example) 16"x12". This makes far more sense for consumers (and most professionals, for that matter). The printing company will then do any scaling necessary to make your image match the printer's resolution before printing it, making sure it comes out as good as it can do. You can set your PPI setting to 72, 300, 1, 42929, or anything else, and the printing company will simply ignore it, and will print the image to fit on the paper size you've specified. (If you don't believe me, get two prints done, one with your default file, and one changing just the PPI value using the first method above, unchecking the 'resample image' box). They will be identical.
Now if you really want to, you can still resample your image to 300 dots per inch (or another DPI setting specified by your printing company) at the print size you require (using the second method in Photoshop as documented above, and leaving the 'resample image' box checked). However, you better be very sure that you want to. Firstly, are you absolutely convinced that you're resampling the image using the correct algorithm? A good printing company will resample the image to maximise sharpness without introducing artefacts -- if you aren't doing that better than they are, your image will look worse when printed. Secondly, if there's any discrepancy in what you think their printer's DPI is and what it actually is, they'll have to resample it again anyway -- and each resampling process always loses detail. It's almost always safer to leave the printing company to do any necessary resampling unless you know exactly what you're doing.
So about the only time any of this is any use is when you are printing at home, and it's all down to you to maximise your own image quality. Now, to be honest, these days even home printers do a pretty awesome job of this automatically, but to maximise quality, this is the one time where it probably is worth resampling in Photoshop -- again by using the second method and going to Image -> Image Size, leave 'resample image' checked, choose a PPI of 300, and set the document size values to the size (in inches or centimeters) you want the image to be printed. When you go to print in Photoshop, you'll see that the image will be printed at exactly the size you specified.
The final thing to remember is that, if you've ever used the second resize method, where you leave the 'resample image' box checked, you have altered your image file. *Do not save this over your original file -- it is lower quality*. Always keep the original edited file (with the resolution as it came out of the camera), and base any printer-related adjustments off this file each time. As I said above, if you've resampled the image at any point, even if the final resolution was higher than the original file's resolution, you have lost detail, and you should always start from the original image again next time (unless you are printing at the exact same size).
Wow, longest ever? Questions, as always, welcomed.