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Question about prints

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2012 8:43 pm
by Velvetina
Hi,

While attempting to turn some of my shots into greeting cards and have it printed, I see several images being required to come in higher DPI. I have figured out the abbreviation by now, yet wonder if there is any way that I can possibly alternate that number on a regular Photoshop, so as to avoid having to search for the original images, or is that only option? Any advice (to a non-designer) will be much appreciated!

Re: Question about prints

Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2012 11:57 pm
by MichaelDay
300 dpi (or dots per inch) is the standard requirement for printing an image 'same size'

If you've scanned your card at a lower dpi rate than this you can use photoshop to 'resample' the image.
(Image > Image Size > Resolution )

... Photoshop does a reasonable job of this but the result will be a much poorer image than if you had scanned at 300dpi in the first place.

What counts overall is the number of pixels in the scan (approx 1650 x 1050 in a 300dpi postcard scan) - the less pixels you have the poorer the quality.

Though you may hardly notice a difference if the resolution is somewhere close - 240dpi for example.

So overall it's important to get as good a scan as you can in the first instance, it's easy to scale down a high res image without loss of quality but impossible to add 'detail' that has been lost (or not recorded in the first place) by enlarging a low res scan.

I usually scan cards at 600-800 dpi. - this will allow you to print good quality at an enlarged size (A4) if necessary.