The Resolution Riddle

When production time rolls around for our publication, we once again have the unhappy task of explaining to a number of disappointed advertisers that the images that appear on their web site are not suitable for printing in their ads. Why? Because web images are usually only 72dpi, while for printing we must have 300dpi.

This distinction is a source of enormous confusion, mainly because it's counterintuitive to believe that an image that looks absolutely fine on your monitor will look terrible when printed. How can this be?

I've never really been able to offer a clear or simple explanation for this, so I've looked for some help on the web. Here are some helpful articles I've found:

From Printing for Less (a great resource for quality, reliable postcard and brochure printing, btw!):

printingforless.com/resolution.html

From another printer -- Marsid-M&M:

mmprint.com/highres_photos.cfm

From a forum -- a greaat post explaining DPI, PPI and why those pix that look great on your computer monitor look so bad when you print them:

twopeasinabucket.kaboose.com

Can anything be done if your favorite images are only available on your web site? Probably not. The best advice I can offer is to obtain high resolution images from the photographer as well as web-ready when you prepare your web site. That way, you'll have the images you love available to use in all your marketing (and you already know how helpful it is to repeat your images and messages for memorability -- 7-10x!).