What resolution is needed for photos

[Eric Goldsmith]

What is the printer resolution needed to print 5x7 photos at the same
visible quality level of traditional prints? What about 8x10?

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Before you buy.

[Al Anderson]

Hi,

This is a complex question. Besides all the technical implications
regarding scanning and software manipulation, it obviously depends on
your printer as well.

My best suggestion is to visit this site for more details:
http://www.scantips.com/

Personally, I don't scan photos at more than 300 dpi if I do not intend
to resize for printing. With the photo printers I use, I generally print
at 1440 dpi.

Cheers & Happy Printing,
Al
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Eric Goldsmith wrote:

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[Jon Harris]

The usual rule of thumb is to have 300dpi at the output size to get results
as good as "traditional" prints. So for a 5x7, you need a 1500x2100 pixel
image and for 8x10, 2400x3000 pixels. That being said, many people are
happy with the prints they get from 200 or even 150dpi at output size. At
100dpi, the pixels are generally quite obvious. Less then that and the
quality is obviously even lower.

"Eric Goldsmith" <egold...@columbus.rr.com> wrote in message
news:8t4p9o$n0f$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

[RyanP0917]

The general rule of thumb I've learned in school (graphic arts major) is to
scan at double the LPI (See below) of your printer.

LPI and DPI are two totally different things. You need to find some specs on
your printer and look for Line Screen, Lines Per Inch, something like that.
It'll probably be a lower number, mabye the hundreads or so depending on your
printer. So take that number and mutiply it by two to get what is expected
from your printer. Scanning at a higher DPI won't really give you a better
image, but a larger file..

[David Chien]

See http://www.silverace.com/dottyspotty/ for my film vs. digital
article and you can calculate everything yourself.

As a rule of thumb, once you get above 4MP or above 300dpi, you'll be
maxing just about every <$1000 home photo printer in terms of resolution
at 4x6" (ie. they just can't resolve anything finer nor go any sharper
even if you feed it a 100MP file at 10000dpi - physical print head
limitation). For 8x10", 8MP or 300dpi will do the same.

when I say 300dpi+ I'm assuming your image has enough pixels to output
at 300dpi w/o upsampling - ie. the original image has to have enough
pixels otherwise, you'll simply be seeing fat pixels on output.