The Myth of 300 DPI

Most calls to enter I see these days ask for digital images at 300 DPI. When a client asks what it means, I tell them it means nothing ... 300 DPI is a myth, an urban legend that has taken on a life of its own.

Simply put, DPI (dots per inch) is not a meaningful attribute of a digital image. The size that matters is the pixel dimensions, how many pixels in height and width. In my seminars and workshops, I show students two images with the same number of pixels ... one saved at 300 DPI and the other at 72 DPI. Guess what? They look the same, because the computer sees only the pixels in an image. It doesn't know about inches or DPI.

The 300 DPI myth got started because it is a common resolution for laser and inkjet printers and about as much detail as the eye can easily see. To be helpful, image editing software lets you set a DPI when resizing an image as a way to calculate a new pixel height and width. And yes, the DPI gets saved with the image. But the computer ignores it when displaying an image. So do us all a favor and stop asking for 300 DPI. Ask instead for pixels.