I need a little help here. I just spent many hours completing a commercial project and the client was very pleased with the final results, however they just contacted me today and told me that their ad people need the image to be 300 DPI and the one I sent was only 72 DPI. I'm relatively experienced with PSP and Photoshop, but I've never run into this problem before, and although I know how to start an image off at 300 DPI, I have no idea if there is a way to increase the resolution once an image is completed. Any suggestions? Or am I going to have to redo the entire image? I'm going to post this to the Paint Shop Pro forum, too, just in case. :) Thanks, Tara

I'm not very experienced with Photoshop, but maybe try Image/Resize and just change the DPI; leaveing the physical size the same? Just a thought. Rich

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I think you are screwed....sorry.

There are many solutions floating around out there for this problem. However, each solution has serious drawbacks. Increasing resolution will always result in a degradation of the image. One solution is a software program called "Genuine Fractals", but this program seems to work best with files that start out at 10MB or higher. Another solution I heard of is to increase resolution using PS in 1% increments until the desired resolution is reached. Another solution: Join the 'Photoshop Discussion List' where you can always get an answer to the most technical of questions. SUBSCRIBING: subscribe photoshop your_name join photoshop your_name alternate address: Vince

You can't get detail that isn't there, you got to start over, sorry. Or you can just turn off resample image when you change the image size, but then the inches just go down in proportion to the increase in dpi. Dpi is meaningless in itself, when you work in Photoshop you work in pixels, and you always have to plan so you have enough for the end use. Plan ahead! If you have too many (always a good plan) you can resample down, at the end, but you can't resample up, all you are doing is making a bigger file.

Is the image the correct pixel by pixel size, or is it just too small overall? What size did they want and what did you give them? Was their specs in inches or pixels?

First of all whats with everyone calling it DPI!!!!!!!!!!! Dots Per Inch!!!! This is only used with ink jet printers and old scanners!!! Why u ask, because Dpi is measured 1/300th of a pixel!!!What we are discussing is PPI. Pixels per inch. Pixels per inch refers to how we see an image on a monitor. So what this means is: DPI & PPI are like a sock and hat. They both fit on a human but, you dont wear a sock on your head unless your an azz, (catch my meaning I hope). Sorry for being so blunt about this but, I see it all the time written in these colums in regaurds to the mass confusion of DPI & PPI. Now to the topic at hand, yes you screwed up, however #1, genuine fractals will certainly do the job,( may need tweaking of - course ), however you probably dont have that. #2, You can try resizing it to 300 "ppi" with the resample turned on. Convert the image to Lab mode and select the channels tab and then select the lightness channel. Run the unsharp mask filter with a radius of no more than 1.2. You can adjust the "amount" and "threshold" till it looks good. Remember this, the sharpining will look better when printed, then seen on screen. So dont be shy with the "amount" setting, but dont over do it either. This is a short cut, and may not work depending your project. For future Reference you shoud always ask your client what formats and printing are they looking to do. I highly recommend conntacting their printer to see what CMYK work space they use as well as, what LPI their using. Most professionally printed poducts use LPI rather than "DPI" because DPI only refers to ink jets printers, which in turn means "shitty azz cheap printing".

Er.. sorry guys, but DPI/PPI is not your problem. The bottom line is, I guess Tara's clients are going to commercial print, and virtually ALL commercial printers still refer to DPI. (A lot have still only moved over from hot metal to PC's, they are a rather backward bunch.) Most standard printing runs at 150DPI, but for higher quality, they may run to 300, or even higher for brochures and posters. In a nutshell, I think you are up a gum tree here. If you do print work, run at least at 150DPI. It's always best to ask what the final destination product is here anyway. Upping the image res size in increments will help to a degree, as it gives PS a better chance to interpolate the pixel data, but as one chap said, you can't make an image create detail if it is't there already. I think you have to put this one down to experience, and start over. Sorry.

Dpi & ppi are the problem. What Commercial printer refers to DPI? I think You must be refering to LPI "lines per Inch". Laser printers, imagesetters, printing press, thermal wax printers, ect., all use halftones to simulate shades of grey! Ink jet printers use dpi because they dont use halftones and instead use groupings of the same sized dot to simulate shades of grey. Commercial printers don't use dpi or only refer to it because it's old equipment. Besides if you dont understand dpi, lpi & ppi, your going to have a big problem. Try resizing you image to 1500 dpi as Boxx saids and you had better have one hell of a computer cause the file size will be ridiculous. The only type of art that uses A high level of Dpi is in the scanning process and only when your scanning in Line-ART. How do I know all of this you ask, because it took me almost 2 yrs of self studying and passing Adobe's Expert level Certification test. But please, don't take my word for it, if you look it up in your photoshop manual it will tell you the same thing. Further more, high end magazines and high quality brochures use a LPI of 150, wich means your image/project should be using a base of 300 PPI. If your image was going to be used on a 1200 dpi laser printer, your image would need to be set to 400 PPI.

When you are preparing for whatever medium print, web, it is always best to work to their standards.IF you keep it the same size, you can change the resolution.Just don't change the physical size since Photoshop uses a method called interpolation where it samples surrounding pixels and then tries to get the newly created pixel "somewhere in between".DPI and LPI are the "language of the trade" much like pica's. It enables one to talk to someone on the other side of the world and they can understand each other. DigitalDream#3 A.A.S. in Graphic Arts/Photo-Offset Advanced Certificate in Digital Imaging

Actually there would be 4 times as many pixels/dots in the same space.IF you keep it the same size there should not be any problem.Put the two side by side and see if you can tell the difference.Only when you blow-up the image will you notice any difference in quality.

Hi, I read all the comments and I'm still to understand it.... Dpi, ppi... Well, how do I set ppi in photoshop? Why then it's sugested over college (academy of arts) that we do the printing work at 300dpi? But yet adjust the size for printing? Depending on the size the print will be done? One other thing.... On photoshop 6 there's something under image size called auto. which allows one to reset the resolution for the image, once set in the auto mode it can get a 72dpi image and change it to 300 with fairly good results but it also increases the size, what it can be done than is to resize it.... And once again, it works fairly well..... thanks....

All a screen monitor will display at is 72 Dpi.You can set the Dpi in image size. If you take a image and change the physical dimensions AND keep the same resolution, Photoshop interpolates and creates/subtracts new pixels/dots in order to fill in the spaces. If you keep the same physical dimensions and change the resolution, PS will either create or subtract dots depending on which way you go, up or down.It gets pretty technical sometimes and I would suggest just creating a image at a certain physical dimension and resolution and leaving everything else up to someone in production. That way you do not have to back peddle and try to straighten everything out like in this situation.

now youve all gone completely off the point STOP IT!!!