The topic of resolution and graphics in printing is vast and often confusing, even overwhelming at times. It is important to have an understanding of resolution on any printing job. How it looks on screen is NOT necessarily how it will look in print. Before you panic at the thought of what you don’t know about resolution, here is a breakdown of the basics:
- Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image. Resolution is sometimes identified by the width and height of the image as well as the total number of pixels in the image. For example, an image that is 2048 pixels wide and 1536 pixels high (2048X1536) contains (multiply) 3,145,728 pixels (or 3.1 Megapixels). Keep this in mind when you are resizing objects to print.
- Printers can put dots of different sizes, intensities, and even shapes, onto the page, which can change the way the finished product looks. Many printers use “optimized dpi,” meaning their print heads optimize the placement of ink drops to improve the quality of prints.
- More is not necessarily better. For the majority of daily uses you’d be wasting ink to print everything in the highest possible resolution. When I print out shopping lists, I set my printer to “draft” quality so the document comes out fast. It doesn’t look perfect, but who cares? As long as I can read it when I’m in the supermarket, it’s good enough.
- For a letter or business document (even one with graphics), 300 dpi is going to look fine. If it’s a handout for the board of directors, 600 dpi will look great. For the average photograph, 1,200 dpi is excellent (only pros would need to print something at twice that). Resolution is more than just dpi, however. The kind of ink used can trump the dpi numbers.
Tags: custom printing, pixels, printers dpi, Resolution
