Two eggs frying in the pan, one of which is pixelated

Understanding Image Resolution: The Secret to Crisp Graphics

As a graphic design centric company, image resolution is a part of our job pretty much no matter what we do. But for the everyday person, it’s probably not something they think about. That being said, if you’re a business owner, you likely have some kind of involvement in either the digital or print plane, so resolution is crucial for businesses. From social media to printed menus, clear visuals are essential for professionalism and easy understanding. Let’s talk about it.

PPI and DPI

Here’s the gist. PPI refers to pixels per inch, which is how many single pixels are in one inch of a digital image. All those little pixels make up any screen you’re looking at, so the more there are, the clearer and higher quality they’ll be. If you’ve seen a low resolution image before, you’ll have noticed little squares that chunk up the image, which means that there are far less PPI than a clear resolution image.

DPI, or dots per inch, is sort of the same, except for printed media. It’s the number of dots per inch that make up an image on a printed image. Printed images are sort of like a very, very detailed mosaic, in that they’re made up of a bunch of miniscule dots. So having a higher DPI results in a much clearer, crisp print, versus one that has a lower DPI.

Now that we’ve talked about the measurements of resolution, here are some quick reference points for good DPI and PPI to look at when you’re handing off logos, images for print, or any other similar project.

Digital

  • 72ppi is the minimum for any digital image you’re posting on your social media, website, etc.
  • 150ppi is the maximum you should be uploading to anything digitally, as it’s good enough quality to zoom in on, but isn’t too large to the point where it’s having trouble loading, or taking up a lot of space on your server. Although there’s not anything wrong with uploading a higher ppi, you may have trouble with the file size being too big or it slowing down loading time when someone goes to look at it.

Print

  • 150dpi is the minimum for any project you’re sending off to print. If you have no other choice, it should get the job done.
  • 300dpi is what a lot of print shops will require or ask for if you’re sending something to them for print. You want that image or design to be super crispy, like some good bacon.

Okay, okay, this may all be good to know, but how do you find the PPI or DPI of an image or file on your computer?

For Mac, you can find this by right clicking on the file and opening it in preview. Then, go up to the top toolbar under Tools and click Show Inspector. It also appears in the preview pane information.

For Windows, right click the file and select Properties. Then go into the Details tab.

And that’s it! Hopefully this helps you the next time you have to send off a logo to someone or a project to the printer. Enjoy your crispy, crunchy images!

*This post was written by a human named Alex.