Dpi

A

Angie

Messages
124
Name
Angie
Edit My Images
No
I am doing a cookery book and have been told that the pictures should be 300 dpi but all my photographs are around 72. I really dont understand what I have to do. My pictures are around 2300 x 3200 (cropped). I am using open office. Can any one help or understand what I am trying to say. I could be too vague.
 
Hi Angie - there will be a default setting in whatever editing software you are using that specifies DPI = 72 (this setting is fine for viewing on PC monitors)
You will need to change this setting to 300.
 
Hello Angie,

Do you have any image editing software such as photoshop, GIMP or lightroom?

Basically your image needs to be opened in one of these programs (or something similar) then go to the image settings and change it from 72 to 300.

EDIT: What he said ^^ :)
 
Yes I have photoshop elements 9, so will do what you just advised. Thank you so much for helping.
 
You can't output to 300dpi until you know what the final reproduction size will be, which will be set by the publisher/designer. 300 is standard for books and magazine, 72 is standard for screen/web.

You would normally supply your finished full res JPEG file to the publisher, and their production department would then convert it to the exact spec for final output, after the size and crop has been decided. It's the last thing to be done before printing.
 
HoppyUK said:
You can't output to 300dpi until you know what the final reproduction size will be, which will be set by the publisher/designer. 300 is standard for books and magazine, 72 is standard for screen/web.

You would normally supply your finished full res JPEG file to the publisher, and their production department would then convert it to the exact spec for final output, after the size and crop has been decided. It's the last thing to be done before printing.
Click to expand...

Agreed on what Hoppy says:

At my place (we do fishing mags) we ask for all supplied digital images to be straight from camera, or at least retouched but not resized. Repro then resize for output before designers lay the images in InDesign. Just means you have the optimum size to work with, especially if an image is to be used DPS
 
HoppyUK said:
You can't output to 300dpi until you know what the final reproduction size will be, which will be set by the publisher/designer. 300 is standard for books and magazine, 72 is standard for screen/web.

You would normally supply your finished full res JPEG file to the publisher, and their production department would then convert it to the exact spec for final output, after the size and crop has been decided. It's the last thing to be done before printing.
Click to expand...

OP did say it is for a book so 300 would be what they need.
 
AndyB said:
OP did say it is for a book so 300 would be what they need.
Click to expand...

No it's not. See above.

You can't output at 300 dots per inch until you know how many inches the image is going to be printed. The supplied image file should be highest quality JPEG, no dpi applied.

The publisher will not thank you for doing this, in fact it might make the images unusable. And it doesn't save any work for them - final output level is a single mouse-click right at the end of the production procedure.
 
An image that measures 300x150 pixels can be output with a setting of 300Dpi, but it won't be of much use to a publisher as it will only render an image measuring 1" x 1/2" at those settings, which probably isn't much use to anyone.

Conversely, an image measuring 6000x3000 pixels with an imbedded resolution of 72Dpi appears to not meet the requirements of the publisher in question, but this image is clearly of a much higher resolution than the one in my previous example.

As others have said, without knowing what the size of the final image is going to be, being asked to provide pictures at 300Dpi is pretty meaningless.
 
HoppyUK said:
No it's not. See above.

You can't output at 300 dots per inch until you know how many inches the image is going to be printed. The supplied image file should be highest quality JPEG, no dpi applied.

The publisher will not thank you for doing this, in fact it might make the images unusable. And it doesn't save any work for them - final output level is a single mouse-click right at the end of the production procedure.
Click to expand...

I presume from the OP that they have told her the size of the images. If they know what they're talking about (let's hope they do!) why would they ask for images to be 300dpi without telling her the sizes required?
 
HoppyUK said:
No it's not. See above.

You can't output at 300 dots per inch until you know how many inches the image is going to be printed. The supplied image file should be highest quality JPEG, no dpi applied.

The publisher will not thank you for doing this, in fact it might make the images unusable. And it doesn't save any work for them - final output level is a single mouse-click right at the end of the production procedure.
Click to expand...

I had this argument with a local newspaper.. insisted on parrotting so many DPI without telling me how many inches (group shot for a charity even I help with).

DPI has to be the least understood parameter in digital image processing. It seems to cause a lot of problems on forums. It's also the most pointless. - surely the only thing that really matters is the pixel dimensions?

Does the embedded resolution really make a practical difference if an image is already at the correct pixel dimensions? - in general terms, not specific electronic publishing formats with embedded profiles.
 
Alastair said:
I had this argument with a local newspaper.. insisted on parrotting so many DPI without telling me how many inches (group shot for a charity even I help with).
Click to expand...

That's because colormagic has a minimum dpi requirement most are set to only accepts at 300dpi and above , not that it makes a ounce of difference as most toilet paper can only sustain 60-120 on a good day.
 
Alastair said:
I had this argument with a local newspaper.. insisted on parrotting so many DPI without telling me how many inches (group shot for a charity even I help with).

DPI has to be the least understood parameter in digital image processing. It seems to cause a lot of problems on forums. It's also the most pointless. - surely the only thing that really matters is the pixel dimensions?

Does the embedded resolution really make a practical difference if an image is already at the correct pixel dimensions? - in general terms, not specific electronic publishing formats with embedded profiles.
Click to expand...

It depends who you speak to on the newspaper/publication. If you speak to editorial, marketing or advertising sales peeps, their knowledge of the printing process is often a bit short. I have been working with them for over 30 years. Speak to the production department, or the actual page designer.

If you supply a pre-screened image at 300dpi (or maybe 150dpi for newspapers) then you need to know the exact output dimensions. If it then turns out that the image is used at a different size, which is almost certainly the case, then it will have to be re-screened.

If you take an A4 image at 300dpi, you can probably get away with that if the final output size is very much smaller than that, like a couple of inches wide, but you run the risk of moire patterns when the new screen is applied over the old, which it must be.

If the image is to be used bigger, then at A3 across a spread that 300dpi is cut in half and you're throwing away output quality. You would only ever do that if the original image file was not available. It wouldn't look good and you'd probably look for a different image.

That's a bit of an explanation but it's all kind of irrelevant. The publisher does not want a screened image image in the first place, not to any resolution. They will apply the print screen, along with various other adjustments approrpiate to the press and paper such as dot-gain and contrast etc when the image is optimised for final output.
 
I had a similar argument with the publisher of our newsletter, and all he kept saying was that he had been in the publishing business for umpteen years and he knew what he was talking about. So I sent him a picture that measured 150x100 pixels, with an embedded resolution of 300Dpi as requested. Needless to say, he didn't use the photo.
 
HoppyUK said:
It depends who you speak to on the newspaper/publication. If you speak to editorial, marketing or advertising sales peeps, their knowledge of the printing process is often a bit short. I have been working with them for over 30 years. Speak to the production department, or the actual page designer.

If you supply a pre-screened image at 300dpi (or maybe 150dpi for newspapers) then you need to know the exact output dimensions. If it then turns out that the image is used at a different size, which is almost certainly the case, then it will have to be re-screened.

If you take an A4 image at 300dpi, you can probably get away with that if the final output size is very much smaller than that, like a couple of inches wide, but you run the risk of moire patterns when the new screen is applied over the old, which it must be.

If the image is to be used bigger, then at A3 across a spread that 300dpi is cut in half and you're throwing away output quality. You would only ever do that if the original image file was not available. It wouldn't look good and you'd probably look for a different image.

That's a bit of an explanation but it's all kind of irrelevant. The publisher does not want a screened image image in the first place, not to any resolution. They will apply the print screen, along with various other adjustments approrpiate to the press and paper such as dot-gain and contrast etc when the image is optimised for final output.
Click to expand...

You'd love our repro manager; everything's actioned in PS for retouching, and he's a big fan of interpolating, which ruins probably 50 per cent of what I shoot. Mention lightroom to him and he looks blankly back...
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top