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This is my first post on any forum, so bear with me if I am doing it in the wrong place! What does resolution in DPI mean? I want to submit a photo to a local calendar contest and it is asking for at least “250 dpi.” When I look at my photos on my computer, I am able to see a dpi number under information, but most say 180 dpi and the one I wanted to submit says 72 dpi. The other numbers on the photo I was planning to use, for example, are 4608 x 3456 and 1. 7 MB, so I thought it would be ok. This photo was also taken on my phone, but my other photos from my digital camera are max 180 dpi. I took photography in college in “the film era” and am feeling very much a beginner at this point 🙂
Hi Miriam, and welcome to the Lenspiration forums!
DPI stands for “dots per inch”. For digital files that you’re viewing on a screen it’s not a very useful number, (it’s mostly used for printing) but it’s good to know what it means so you can understand it when people toss the term around. 🙂
Digital photos are made up of millions of little colored dots called “pixels”. A 16 megapixel camera will produce a photo with approximately 16 million pixels in it, arranged in a grid that when viewed from a distance makes a colorful photo appear. When you print a photo, the computer takes those colored pixels and converts them into little colored dots of ink that are sprayed onto the page from the printer nozzle. In order to get a good-looking print you want to have enough dots close together that blend well enough to make a nice high-quality printout. That’s where DPI comes in. You want to have at least 250-300 dots per inch in your print in order to make it really good even when viewed up close.
So the question actually becomes, “How do I know if my photo has sufficient DPI to look good in a print?” The answer completely depends on what size you plan to print. 🙂 A 4×6″ photo at 300 DPI will require a photo resolution of at least 1200×1800 pixels (multiply 300 x print size in inches to get the pixel dimensions).
A calendar will likely be printed at 8×10″ or 8.5×11″ (check the contest guidelines), so if they require 250 DPI, then you’ll want to multiply by 250 to find the minimum photo dimensions. In this case, you’ll want at least 2000×2500 or 2125×2750 respectively. If your photo is 4608 x 3456 then you’ve got plenty of pixels to spare!
Note that lots of photo software shows DPI in the info/settings for a photo as 72 or 96 or 180 DPI. That’s a meaningless number because without knowing the print size, you can’t know what the actual DPI is going to be. Just take the pixel dimensions and the desired print size and calculate it yourself for optimum results. 🙂
BTW, the reason most photos show up as 72 or 96 DPI is because many computer screens (used to) display approximately 72/96 pixels per inch. As you might imagine, that’s nowhere near as high quality as a good print! If you have a newer “high resolution” display, such as a 2K/4K monitor, or modern Apple products with Retina displays, then they often have a much higher PPI, sometimes even more than 300! You’ll notice that such displays often show lots of detail in your high resolution photos that just weren’t visible on older screens that spread the pixels so thin.
Wow, thank you for taking the time for such a thorough response! I understand it much better and look forward to learning more as I go. I appreciate all the detail and it is just what I needed. My laptop is definitely of an older generation so I am glad to know it is partly that.
@mnavurskis, if the contest required 250dpi (even though it technically doesn’t matter), were you able to find a way to change the DPI so it would show up as 250dpi in the photo info?
Well, I didn’t really think of that. I was thinking the way Ezra Morley explained it, that it was a result of my older laptop display and they would see something different on their display. The main thing that mattered was the size of print being made. Since the photo dimensions were 4608 x 3456, and he said it needed to be at least 2000×2500 or 2125×2750 for a calendar (8x10or 8.5×11), I just submitted it because it was much beyond that! I haven’t heard anything back yet, it doesn’t close until sometime in August. I took it with my phone and didn’t do any editing, they made a point of saying very little or no editing, just represent their service area in Iowa (internet service provider). I have attached the photo for interest 🙂
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Nice! I hope your photo is chosen as a winner!
Do you have a lot of photos that could be put together into your own calendar, @mnavurskis?
Oh yes! At one point I even had a file labeled something like “Potential Income” or similar where I put photos I thought were good enough to use as stock photos or for making cards, calendar, etc. One year I compiled pictures I had taken of our church (we lived in a parsonage across the field), from all seasons, created a calendar in Shutterfly, and took orders from the congregation for an anniversary year. I used to keep my photos in Memory Manager from Creative Memories, and when they declared bankruptcy and the new company didn’t support the software I never quite recovered photo organization. Then kids, homeschooling, 2 more camera changes, and so on! I am finally beginning to make organization out of the madness and learn my new camera (Canon EOS R50 with an 18-45 lens and 55-210 lens), learn Lightroom and so on. Someday I would like to have a stock photo account, but after seeing some of yours that weren’t accepted it will probably be a while. It’s a process, right??
Wow, that’s neat! It’s hard enough keeping my photos organized as a father of one, and that, with a job in photography. 😀 Yes, I remind myself “just one step at a time” all the time. With stock photography, start with your very best and go from there. You’ve got good equipment. You’ll begin to see if your work is chosen or not, and start to know what areas you need to grow in!
Hi @mnavurskis, just wanted to let you know you can get your photos printed in Artist’s Calendars now! Here are the details: https://www.lenspiration.com/product/artists/
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