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A
Anonymous
June 4, 2017
Answered

How to publish a png to 300 dpi in Photoshop

  • June 4, 2017
  • 6 replies
  • 28394 views

I'm wanting to print t-shirt designs. I need a 300 dpi resolution, and I need the background to be transparent.

    Correct answer melissapiccone

    I save png files at 300 ppi all the time - for digital scrapbooking. Just create your images at the size you want and save them... I guess I don't understand the problem... just turn off any background layers so you see the transparency in PS and save as a png...

    6 replies

    julieb64757599
    julieb64757599
    Participant
    September 15, 2020

    Hi Melissa, This thread is quite old but ill try 🙂

    Im "saving as" png, my image which is 300 ppi and it comes out being 72ppi. Im not exporting it, saving as. Am I missing something?

    gener7
    Community Expert
    gener7Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 15, 2020

    Best to open a new topic than to append to a very old and marked as answered post. That way you get full attention to your problem.

    lesnicole
    lesnicole
    Inspiring
    August 10, 2020

    This is an old thread, but as I've stumbled upon it, I'll add my experience and 2 cents. I have to save 300 ppi transparent pngs all the time as I'm a digital graphics creator.

     

    Let me address a couple of things from this thread:

    1. Even if you don't need 300 ppi (Dpi) for most printing, most print services ask that you provide 300 ppi. Also, the average customer doesn't understand that pixel dimensions are pixel dimensions no matter what the ppi is. Just give them 300 ppi and save yourself a lot of customer support questions! (A print shop would be savvy about this, but just giving a perspective for say scrapbook designers.
    2. Doing an Export to PNG will give you a 72 ppi file - even if the pixel dimensions are the same as the original. You could do as suggested and open it back up and resave to 300 ppi (making sure Resample is unchecked.) This does work, but it will still say 72ppi in the Bridge preview. I didn't notice any upsizing as one person suggested. I usually do a SAVE AS png instead of Export As. Then, I can save to 300ppi. The benefits of Export As though is that it will strip out extraneous metadata which is good if you are giving files to customers who won't understand the pixel dimension / ppi relationship. My way is to export a Photoshop file from Lightroom stripping out the metadata. Then I run actions I've created to make the file transparent and then I run an action to Save As a .png. You could conversely also do an action to save as 300 ppi and batch run that on any files you Export As.

    Hope that makes sense!

      D Fosse
      Community Expert
      D FosseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 10, 2020

      "Doing an Export to PNG will give you a 72 ppi file"

       

      Doing an Export to PNG will give you a file without ppi - not 72, not 300, not anything. As has been explicitly said several times in this thread.

       

      Export is for web/screen/mobile. It is not intended for print files.

       

       

      I
      Impressive_friendship15A9
      Participant
      January 23, 2019

      Save your PNG file, then open it on PS. Change the DPI to 300 and save it again. Just save. Remember you are now editing a png file. No need to export or save as. Just save and be happy  You're done! PNG 300DPI

      Stephen Marsh
      Community Expert
      Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 23, 2019

      As described in my reply #9, opening a PNG image and setting it to 300 ppi and saving will actually result in a value of 11811 ppm.

      This can be verified using ExifTool or other metadata software.

      Photoshop reads the 11811 ppm value when opening the image, converts and rounds up the value to 300 ppi.

      Stephen Marsh
      Community Expert
      Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      August 26, 2018

      Photoshop Export/Quick Export strips the resolution metadata, as does Export/Save for Web (Legacy). Photoshop Save As will retain resolution metadata.

      The official PNG specification for the PNG resolution unit is in metres (not inches). So a 300 ppi save as PNG from Photoshop would embed a value of 11811 ppm (pixels per metre). When Photoshop opens a PNG with this resolution metadata, it performs a “translation” from pixels per metre to PPI:

      118.11 x 2.54 = 299.9994 ppi, rounded up to 300 ppi.

      If there is no resolution metadata embedded in the file, then Photoshop defaults to 72 ppi.

      Adobe Bridge does not perform the same translation, so there is a discrepancy where Bridge indicates the resolution as 72 ppi when Photoshop indicates 300 ppi. Later versions of Bridge simply show an arbitrary value of 72 ppi if there is no resolution metadata in the file. Earlier versions of Bridge, such as CS6 showed no resolution information at all for PNG files, whether they had resolution metadata or not.

      melissapiccone
      Community Expert
      melissapicconeCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      June 4, 2017

      I save png files at 300 ppi all the time - for digital scrapbooking. Just create your images at the size you want and save them... I guess I don't understand the problem... just turn off any background layers so you see the transparency in PS and save as a png...

      Melissa Piccone | Adobe Trainer | Online Courses Author | Fine Artist
      A
      Anonymous
      June 4, 2017

      Ok, I have done that. But when I check the file properties of the png, after it's published. It actually doesn't give me any information about the dpi. But when I publish it as a jpeg, it has a dpi of 92 I believe. Even tho i have my canvas set to 300dpi in Photoshop before publishing.

        D Fosse
        Community Expert
        D FosseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 4, 2017

        If you're using Export or Save For Web, the resolution metadata are discarded, so that the file doesn't have a resolution at all. This is because resolution is moot for screen. The application you reopen the file into, may then assign its own default ppi value. Some assign 72, others 96 or some other value.

        But none of this really matters. What matters is that you have enough pixels for the intended resolution at the intended size. If you open the Image Size dialog - with "resample image" UNchecked!!! - just type in the intended resolution and see if the resulting print size is sufficient.

        It's important to realize that ppi, pixels per inch, is not a native property of the file. It's just metadata, and it can be changed arbitrarily without affecting the file. Just stop and consider what pixels per inch means. That little formula is the key.

        All that said, cotton fabric can not possibly resolve as high as 300 ppi. I'd say 150 at the most, more likely 100.

          Terri Stevens
          Terri Stevens
          Legend
          June 4, 2017

          I don't produce t-shirts but I'm pretty sure you don't need resolutions as high as 300dpi as the ink bleeds into the fabric and reduces the resolution. 120-150dpi would be closer to the mark I'd guess, but there are plenty of people here who know exactly how the process works so I'll leave the details to them.

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