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Answered

Add dpi control in the 'export as' panel

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
February 1, 2026
6 replies
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It has recently come to my attention that dpi isn’t preserved when using ‘export as’ (it’s changed to 72/ 96dpi) and I think an update to it is warranted.
I work with a lot of artboards for my print files (300dpi) and often need to export multiple layers to send to the printer. Export as is an incredible feature that makes saving out a batch of files from different artboards, or groups of layers efficient and painless; it’s one of my favorite features in modern Ps. If it’s not preserving dpi properly though, it’s functionality is almost nil for print projects, which seems absurd.

‘Save as’ is slow and clunky for saving multiple files, and horrible if you have multiple artboards. If I could keep the dpi of my files in tact, and have the option to change to 72/ 96dpi, it would preserve the amazing functionality that is export as, improve my workflow, and make sure that professional print designers have effective tools that make Photoshop great to work with. ‘Export as’ is too good of a tool to be reserved only for web exports.

Correct answer D Fosse

Export is for screen/web/mobile devices. That’s the whole purpose of it. Ppi is not applicable for the intended purpose, so it’s stripped from the file.

For print files, do not use Export, that’s not what it’s for. Use Save/Save As/Save A Copy.

creative explorer

Community Expert

Hate to say this, but people get this confused. PPI and DPI are two different things, Pixels per inch vs dots per inch. Screen vs paper. When it comes to printing does this really matter? To the person printing sure does. When I worked in pre-press many years ago…. I had to make sure the designer, set the images and file to 300 PPI at the actual size you want to print; the guys and gals on the presses will take care of the rest and it’s DPI!

Having the DPI as part of the Export As - won’t really help you as Export As is really for Save for the Web/Web Images generally. The old tried and true is the Save As function. As long as you know the images are saved correctly for 300 ppi, then the images are great for print—I still cringe when I see and need to handle and fix customer files and all the images are RGB and 72ppi for print!

m

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

In later versions of Photoshop, Adobe changed Export As to now include resolution metadata, not because it is useful for screen display (it isn’t), but because it’s needed for consistent and predictable placement of raster files as smart objects.

I wrote some scripts for Photoshop and Bridge to inject PPI metadata into previously saved JPEG files without decompressing/recompressing the image data:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-script-to-add-missing-resolution-metadata-to-exported-jpeg-files/td-p/13335061

https://community.adobe.com/questions-558/bridge-script-to-add-missing-resolution-metadata-to-exported-jpeg-files-175372

Conrad_C

Community Expert

Thanks for mentioning this! I had no idea they had added that.

I just tried it out, and to clarify how it works for others, it really just adds ppi metadata without changing anything else. But Export As doesn’t offer a field to view or enter the ppi resolution, so for those who are curious, here is how Export As decides what ppi value to embed.

It looks like Export As simply embeds the current ppi of the document. If you don’t know what it is, enable display of Document Dimensions for the status bar or Info panel, or open the Image > Image Size dialog box. If the current ppi is not what you want, change it in the Image Size dialog box. This is 100% consistent with how, for many years, Photoshop has treated ppi when determining the print size in the Print dialog box.

I tested this by changing the ppi of the current document in the Image Size dialog box. The Resample option was disabled, so the document width and height in pixels did not change. As I changed the ppi Resolution in the Image Size dialog box, the ppi embedded by Export As followed accordingly.

If you do want to change the height and width in pixels for the exported copy, Export As has already provided that for a long time. But document ppi must be changed in Image Size.

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

@Conrad_C

That’s right, in Ps 2025/26, Export As retains the resolution metadata just as Save/Save As/Save a Copy does.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

I don’t see anything wrong with your request, since (unlike Save for Web) there is nothing about the name of the Export As command that tells users it’s only for web/mobile. However, if they added an option to embed ppi metadata, then that would imply that they should add other options that are needed for print, so it would be a fair amount of work.

The main issue here is that it is long overdue for Adobe to overhaul the way save/export is organized in Photoshop, because there is so much confusion, even within just this forum, about where you go if you want to export features like ppi resolution, GIF animation, artboards, transparency, PDF, even just a JPEG. Is it Save? Save As? Export As? Save for Web? There are even more export commands than that in Photoshop on the File > Export, File > Automate, and File > Scripts submenus, such as Image Processor.

You practically have to be an advanced user to figure out all of that...

E

ExUSA

Legend

Did you notice that Save for Web is no longer labeled “Legacy”?

creative explorer

Community Expert

@ExUSA no biggie.

m

E

ExUSA

Legend

This is NOT correct. PPI is metadata, and it can be saved or stripped from the file at any point. If it is stripped out, the pixels are unchanged. Most applications will ASSIGN a value, usually 72 or 96 PPI.

I use Save for Web and the highest two metadata settings retain the resolution data. Its in the TIFF namespace, FWIW.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@Jason.F 100% agree with @D Fosse! If you wanted an something to making your life easier, either create a script or an action to quickly save your images as a high-res image. I am old school, and for print, I am NOT saving as JPGs or PNG because of lossy formats and PNG can’t be saved as CMYK colour formats…. but, if you really love those image formats, create an action or script. I use actions to quickly save some of my images and then do a Automate - Batch. Easy peasy!

m

Jason.FAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the advice @creative explorer. Making some actions to get around this might work. That’ll have to do for now.

D Fosse

Correct answer

Community Expert

Export is for screen/web/mobile devices. That’s the whole purpose of it. Ppi is not applicable for the intended purpose, so it’s stripped from the file.

For print files, do not use Export, that’s not what it’s for. Use Save/Save As/Save A Copy.

Jason.FAuthor

Participant

I understand that. This is a feature request though to update ‘export as’ to include dpi controls so it CAN be used for print. It’s too good of a tool to still be reserved for web, I think.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

We use different tools for different output.

Export As optimizes content for web & social media. You simply can’t achieve high quality print settings from Export As. That’s not what it was built for.

You have far more options available from SaveAs or Save a Copy than you do from Export.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

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