DPI Requirements for Photo Printing?

[photosintexas]

Quick question:

I couldn't find a thread about this so I hope you guys can help!

A professional printing company explains to maximize the color printing, I need to have my camera set on the color profile of sRGB and have RGB embedded in my photos.

I have my camera set properly and my color space on my images say RGB but the DPI does not meet the recommendation.

Is there something I am missing?

Thank you!

[fishcat]

Something is missing here on the recommended color space. There should be an additional identifier. There are several choices, but the more common are sRGB (as noted), AdobeRGB, and ProphotoRGB, each a progressively larger color gamut. sRGB is generally for web graphics, but kiosk type printers (think Wally World, Sam's, etc)usually use that color space. Most folks with inkjet printers probably opt for Adobe or Prophoto.

What is the DPI (or actually ppi) recommendation? A properly exposed image can often be resampled as needed. It really depends on what size the final printed image is to be.

[photosintexas]

For the requested picture size, the recommended DPI is 200 to 300 and mine is not at 200 yet.

Hope that helps!!

Thank you for the help!

[dmcantrell]

Changing DPI is typically something that you would do in your post-processing flow.

[photosintexas]

dmcantrell,

Can you ellaborate a little more for me? How do I do that? So sorry, new to this!! :)

[Carl Stone]

Originally Posted by photosintexas

Quick question:

I couldn't find a thread about this so I hope you guys can help!

A professional printing company explains to maximize the color printing, I need to have my camera set on the color profile of sRGB and have RGB embedded in my photos.

I have my camera set properly and my color space on my images say RGB but the DPI does not meet the recommendation.

Is there something I am missing?

Thank you!

Remember, you asked!

How Big Can I Print by Thom Hogan

Color Management made easy by Thom Hogan


HTH

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by photosintexas

dmcantrell,

Can you ellaborate a little more for me? How do I do that? So sorry, new to this!! :)

Sure, no problem. From your profile it says you have a Canon Rebel XTi. This camera produces images of 3,888 x 2,592 (9.8MP).

Open one of your images in your image-editing software (like Photoshop). There should be a way to resize the image in your software. if you open up the resizing function, there should be different places to enter these details :

height (pixels)
width (pixels)
height (inches)
width (inches)
resolution (pixels per inch)*

* "pixels per inch" (ppi) and "dots per inch" (dpi) are the same thing.



If you change the "pixels per inch" (ppi), you should see the "inches" numbers change but not the "pixels".

You can use this feature to "resample" your image into the new ppi and make whatever resolution you desire.

[Carl Stone]

"pixels per inch" (ppi) and "dots per inch" (dpi) are the same thing.

Wrong! That is absolutely incorrect, they are not the same thing at all.

Design215 Photography Printing Guide - DPI vs PPI

[dmcantrell]

Originally Posted by Carl Stone

"pixels per inch" (ppi) and "dots per inch" (dpi) are the same thing.

Wrong! That is absolutely incorrect, they are not the same thing at all.

Design215 Photography Printing Guide - DPI vs PPI

Yeah, good catch. While this may be technically accurate, the two terms are used interchangeably so often that there is effectively no difference anymore -- especially in consumer markets. For the purposes of this thread and the OP's original concern, these technical details are irrelevant.

The point is accurate though, thanks for the info.