MCG blog

McGrath Creative Group will be closed from Feb. 22 to Feb. 26. We will be back at it on March 1

Thanks

Mike

Resolution

So many of our clients come to us wanting to use images they found on the internet for their print media. or shot they took with there pocket camera. It is hard for them to understand why we can’t use the image for print.

I am going to try and explain it in a nut shell.

Most images found on the internet are low resolution, 72 dots per inch (dpi). Printing requires 300 dpi.

OK, why can’t I just open the images in photoshop and change it from 72 dpi to 300 dpi. Well, I guess you can but if you don’t resize it proportionately your image will become blurry and pixilated. I call it the “oatmeal” effect. Your image will look like oatmeal.

Photoshop tries to add in pixals using an algorithm that does not work very well. So please do not send your designer a photo that you took on your camera phone or give them an image found on the internet and hope that they can use it for your print jobs. it just not gonna happen.

Let me explain more. All cameras shoot at 72 dpi even the professional cameras. The difference is professional cameras shoot at a very large pixal width (4000 pixals by X pixals and greater).  Your camera phone shoots at a much smaller pixal width

What a designer will do with a professional photo is convert the image from 72 to 300. They have to making sure that it all resizes proportionately. What does this mean? Well 72 divided by 300 is 4.16. Your image will now be 4.16 the size of the original photo size. For example a 5″ x 7″ photo at 72 dpi will now be 1.68″ x 1.2″ at 300 dpi.

If you give your designer a photo that looks big on your monitor, chances are it is not going to be big enough for print media. So always talk to your designer about what is acceptable. be prepared to set up a photo shoot or use an image off a stock image site.

M