Download free clip art 300 dpi

You can specify the dimensions of an image by choosing the number of pixels that will make up that image: n pixels wide x n pixels high. Easy! But there’s lots more to know about how to make high resolution images so that they print or display properly on a web page. Like, what is DPI and why is it considered the epitome of high resolution? And, what’s the difference between DPI and PPI? Let’s start off with saving images for print.

Size images for printing

A high resolution image for printing is almost always DPI and larger. So, what is DPI? DPI means “dots per inch” as in: the printer is going to spit out little dots of ink for every inch of your photograph. So your image file should contain the same number of pixels per inch that your printer is going to be printing per inch.

Pro tip: Your home or work printer's default resolution is DPI (most likely).

Unless you’re printing something huge like a poster, trade show banner, or billboard, you’ll almost certainly be printing on a DPI printer, simply because this is the resolution of most printers. That means we have to make sure the resolution of your image matches the resolution of your printer.

When somebody asks you for a “ DPI resolution file,” what they want is a file with enough pixels to print that image on a DPI printer.

Get a DPI file

Since we know the printer is going to print at dots per inch, all we need to do is figure out how many pixels to give the printer. To do that, just multiply by the number of inches the print is going to be. That means in order to create a 4 x 6 print on a DPI printer, you want x pixels.

If you don’t feel like doing the math, here’s a handy table:

Pixel to inches conversion chart

Understand size vs. shape

Your image needs to be the same aspect ratio (shape) as the paper you’re printing on, otherwise things get either distorted or cut off. If your image is already the same shape as your paper, you can make this adjustment with the Resize tool. More often, your image is a different shape than the print you plan on making. In that case, you’ll be looking for the Crop tool rather than Resize.

Display images on a screen

When we talk about the resolution of printers, we use the term DPI, and when we talk about monitors, we switch to PPI (pixels per inch). Monitors don’t deal in dots of ink, of course, instead they have pixels that light up to create your image on screen.

Monitors and screens use pixels much more sparingly than printers. While a printer gobbles up of your hard-earned pixels per inch, your miserly monitor might only use That means a x pixel image used to create an 8 x 10 inch print would display at about 2 ¾ feet (yes, we’re talking feet here, folks, not inches) on a 72 PPI monitor.

Sizing for the web would be pretty easy if all screens were 72 PPI. Trouble is, they aren’t—not by a long shot. They used to be, and 72 PPI is still used as a reference for designers, but most modern PC monitors are 96 PPI. Retina displays can be around PPI. This complicates selecting an image size for the web.

Optimize image sizes for the web

When saving images for a website or blog, the site layout that will often dictate how many pixels high and wide you need to size your image. On our blog, for instance, the images within the posts are around pixels wide. Header images that span the entire page might be larger—in the neighborhood of pixels—which leaves it up to the browser to stretch it if the browser window is larger.

If you over-accommodate for large displays with big image sizes that take a long time to load, you’ll end up serving images that slow down your site. It’s a balancing act. You want the smallest file that works for your purpose. When you’re not matching an image to a particular layout, you can be fairly loose with the size. Most people consider a “high resolution” share on the internet to be in the neighborhood of to pixels wide.