Educate me on DPI

[Darcy Baldwin]

When I open my photos from my camera, they're set at about 30x24 (thereabouts) and 72dpi.

I always have resized them to a more workable size and at 300dpi. I thought I read it somewhere a bit ago. I thought by changing it to 300dpi, it would give me a better playing field in quality when I start cropping down photos, and then end up making them a little bigger. I've always done that....but it is pointless? It's not a huge step, but is it a waste of my time?

[Shelly]

I would check your camera and see if you can take the pictures with a higher resolution. It will depend on how many MP's it has. The auto setting on mine takes them at 300 DPI, but I can change it. The higher res you take them in originally the better quality and less overall editing you will have to do. I know with my OLD 3.1 MP camera when I try to blow them to 300 DPI, they are too grainy and look awful.

[Nettio]

My photos come out of the camera the same way except they are at 180ppi. In your case, what you're getting is a 30 in x 24 in photo with 72 pixels per inch. What you want is a 300 pixels per inch but a smaller image size. (Mine works out to being about 5x7 inches at 300ppi since I have a 4MP camera.)

There's a couple of ways to go about doing this. You can change the image size in Photoshop by going to Image>Image Size and adjusting the resolution to 300. You want to make sure that you have Resample Image unclicked. You don't want to resample, you only want to move the pixels around. Resample will add or remove pictures from the image which is where you lose quality.

An easier way to do this is to just drag your photo onto your 300ppi page you're using for your scrapbook layout. If you drag your 72 ppi image onto the 300ppi page, the image size will automatically adjust to having 300 ppi, without losing any image quality.

This article does a good job of explaining the difference between PPI and DPI and how to properly adjust your images.

DPI and PPI Explained (http://www.tildefrugal.net/photo/dpi.php)

HTH!

[Darcy Baldwin]

Thanks, Lynnette...that's what I do, adjust to 300 as soon as I start working with it. I don't do the photo on my layout, I usually have the photo completed before I even start a layout, so I didn't realize that it automatically changed once you got it on. Thanks for the link!

[Nettio]

Glad I could help!

[photojenic]

Okay, now I'm really confused. :duh

I mostly use my Rebel XT set on Large/Fine. However in PSE is always says "resolution 72." But I know the resolution is more than that because I have no problems cropping my photos in PSP and still keep the resolution high. :think

[diannerigdon]

I know - it is confusing. But it's not JUST resolution...it's also about the pixels. If your image is 1600 pixels by 1200 pixels, it doesn't matter what resolution it says it is....it's 1600x1200. Now where the resolution really comes into play is when you move it into your workspace. If you are working on something for the web in 72 dpi, your photo will be too large and you'll have to size it down. If you are working on a scrap layout in 300 dpi, this might be a good size, or you might want to enlarge it a bit. Where it gets confusing is that you can use either the pixel measurements OR the resolution to resize it, but really you are just changing the pixels. So if you just always go by the pixels, you will have a standard that makes sense. In 72 ppi, 1600 pixels = BIG lol. In 300 ppi 1600 pixels = just right. Hehehe. I am over simplifying and maybe not using the best terminology, but you get the idea? The resolution is an important factor, but it's all relative. Okay here's another example. 1600 pixels is 22.22 inches wide in 72 ppi, but it's 5.33 inches wide in 300 ppi. Clear as mud?

[PeggyC]

Only a little word of caution. Each time you work on one of your photos as a jpg and resave it, you lose some of the quality. In PSCS, if I think I might later change the photo again, I save it in PSD format. That way, if you've made changes on adjustment layers, you can go back and correct only that layer (or layers) and you haven't lost any quality in the photograph. Once I know I'm finished with the photo, I will then flatten the image and save it as a jpg as the file sizes are so much smaller.

[cheribear]

I know - it is confusing. But it's not JUST resolution...it's also about the pixels. If your image is 1600 pixels by 1200 pixels, it doesn't matter what resolution it says it is....it's 1600x1200. Now where the resolution really comes into play is when you move it into your workspace. If you are working on something for the web in 72 dpi, your photo will be too large and you'll have to size it down. If you are working on a scrap layout in 300 dpi, this might be a good size, or you might want to enlarge it a bit. Where it gets confusing is that you can use either the pixel measurements OR the resolution to resize it, but really you are just changing the pixels. So if you just always go by the pixels, you will have a standard that makes sense. In 72 ppi, 1600 pixels = BIG lol. In 300 ppi 1600 pixels = just right. Hehehe. I am over simplifying and maybe not using the best terminology, but you get the idea? The resolution is an important factor, but it's all relative. Okay here's another example. 1600 pixels is 22.22 inches wide in 72 ppi, but it's 5.33 inches wide in 300 ppi. Clear as mud?
You're right, it is confusing! All I know is, the pics come off the Rebel at 72, and I always resize them to 300 when I start a page. And when I resize them pixel-wise, I also re-size them, size wise. So if I am working on a 12x12 LO, and I resize my picture to 300 DPI, at the same time I will resize it to 5 inches wide or whatever size I think it will look best on the page.

I was really wondering why this camera was taking 8.0 MP photos and the darned things would be 72 Dpi. Its still clear as mud, but at least I know why they get smaller when I make them 300 DPI. :lol: And I was worried about losing quality, but I'm actually gaining, right?

~Cheri

[Hollie]

You're right, it is confusing! All I know is, the pics come off the Rebel at 72, and I always resize them to 300 when I start a page. And when I resize them pixel-wise, I also re-size them, size wise. So if I am working on a 12x12 LO, and I resize my picture to 300 DPI, at the same time I will resize it to 5 inches wide or whatever size I think it will look best on the page.

I was really wondering why this camera was taking 8.0 MP photos and the darned things would be 72 Dpi. Its still clear as mud, but at least I know why they get smaller when I make them 300 DPI. :lol: And I was worried about losing quality, but I'm actually gaining, right?

~Cheri

If you change the dpi to 300 and make sure the pixel numbers stay the SAME, then you won't be losing any quality at all. If you make the pixel numbers significantly bigger or smaller, you may sacrifice some quality. I would blow up the photo to 100% and do the resize--you should be able to tell if you lose quality that way. I don't think there is an exact amount of increase/decrease that will do this.

HTH :):)