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Thread: How do I change my dpi?

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    How do I change my dpi?



    I just got my first photo gig for a magazine. They require the photos to be 300dpi, how do I change this setting on my camera? I have a canon 40d, when I looked at my older photos in CS3 it said that they were only 240? Do I want to go higher than 300? Can I?


    help...

  2. #2
    Administrator Sean Setters's Avatar
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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    Well, if you convert your photos into JPEGs in Digital Photo Professional, there's a setting in the Convert and Save (or Batch) that allows you to change the Output Resolution to any DPI you wish.


    If you convert your photos into JPEGs using Photoshop, you might be able to set the DPI in the RAW conversion process (although I can't remember specifically how to do that at the moment). Otherwise, if you have a JPEG opened in Photoshop, you can go to Image Size and change the DPI settings there.

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    Senior Member Bill W's Avatar
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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    metakephotos;


    CS3....click IMAGE on the tool bar, move your cursor down to image size, click. A box will appear; in approximately the middle on the left you will see Resolution. Type in the box 300 and then click on OK.


    You state "they require" 300dpi....give them 300 dpi.


    Good luck


    Bill

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    Senior Member neuroanatomist's Avatar
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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    The dpi (dots per inch) is relevant for printing but not much else. You can alter dpi at will for your images, but you'll want to avoid resampling. So, set the Image Size in CS3, and make sure the box to Resample Image is UNchecked. Then, when you increase the dpi using the Resolution field (with the pop-up menu set to pixel/inch) to 300, the Width and Height will change, but the pixel dimensions of the image will not, preserving your image quality.

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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    Hi metakephotos,


    Quote Originally Posted by metakephotos
    how do I change this setting on my camera?




    No I dont think you can do this, but then am not a 40d user so I'm not really sure. What I do know is that pictures are output at the resolution that you set on your camera at the time it was taken. Say for examplke on your 40d set to JPEG large file cs3 would read something like 16.2" x 10.8 [ thats because you are at 240dpi like you mentioned].


    My suggestion would be to just load the file onto your cs3, then crop the picture off course with the crop tool set to 300dpi resolution. Yes 300dpi ismostly requiredgood for silver halide prints. But we do now have 700dpi mini labs coming out right now [ but that's another story.[]]


    Quote Originally Posted by metakephotos
    Do I want to go higher than 300? Can I?




    for what purpose??? Sure you can but then what will you use it for? it will just eat up your hard disk. Computer screensare only set at 72dpi some 96dpi. SoFor now 300dpi is good enough.

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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    According to a book i have been reading, inkjet matte/luster/glossy paper recommended output settings are all at 240ppi or 360ppi, with inkjet glossy also at 480ppi. the book is "The creative Digital Darkroom" and they primarily reference Photoshop CS3. maybe check with the magazine if 300 ppi is their minimum resolution for print. Of course, they are probably not using an inkjet printer but you want your photos to really look good in that magazine.

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    Senior Member neuroanatomist's Avatar
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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    Quote Originally Posted by Todd Ovick


    According to a book i have been reading, inkjet matte/luster/glossy paper recommended output settings are all at 240ppi or 360ppi, with inkjet glossy also at 480ppi.



    They are not using inkjet printing. Professional printing is offset printing. Standard minimum resolutions for offset printing are 300 dpi for images, 600 dpi for combinations of line art and images (e.g. pictures with labels), and 1200 dpi for line art (e.g. graphs, etc.).


    Normally, figures/images are printed at 1 column (3"), 1.5 column (4.5"), or full-width (6", 2 column) size. Ideally, you would know ahead of time the final print size, and produce your image accordingly.


    The 40D produces3888 x 2592 images. That's sufficient for a 13" width at 300 dpi - far wider than a magazine format. Having said that, the production editors know what they're doing. If they ask for a 300 dpi image, give them a 300 dpi image. They will take it from there.

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    Re: How do I change my dpi?



    It shouldn't be an issue, page layout programs will scale images based on pixel count. For example, if your image is saved as 240dpi and the designer places the image (by default it comes in at 100%) and scales it down to 50% the image will print at 480dpi. InDesign will let the designer know the pixel depth in the Info palette. But most designers don't understand dpi that well and just know someone told them somewhere along the line that images have to be at least 300dpi.


    300dpi is based on 12 pixels per millimeter which was deemed the print standard. If you want to be technical about it it is actually 304.8dpi. So you could trip out the designers and save them at that. More than likely they don't know why it would be that.


    200dpi is where the human eye can start resolve that an image is made up of blocks of color so the extra 100 (104.8) pixels are safety nets. Most printers preflights won't send of warnings until the image is stretch beyond the 200dpi threshold.


    But to appease the designers do what most mentioned, image size, make sure Resample is off.

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