I'm New To dpi - How Do I Get A 300dpi Image To Work With A 150dpi Template Without Losing Quality?

[Carrion]

Just recently, I started a POD business and, just now, had to start working with dpi for the first time. I'm still fumbling with it and I do take a while to grasp things so please bear with me.

The design that I have is not mine. I do have a license with permission to use it for POD items. However, it's at 300dpi and the standard design template from the printing company is at 150dpi. To my understanding, they accept files at 300dpi but when I try to make the template 300dpi, the final result is still too big. I'm trying to make it so that I can get the final image to the correct size without losing quality in the design.

For example: Let's say I'm trying to create a 15.5" x 12" laptop sleeve (standard template file is set to 150dpi) and the image I'm working with is at 15"x14" and 300dpi. What would you suggest I do?

Thanks.

[davescm]

At the same physical size, the 300ppi file has 4 times the pixels of the 150 ppi file so some loss of quality is unavoidable.

What would I do?

1. Decide if you really need 300ppi . At 300ppi the pixels will hardly be visible at 22 inches for 150ppi that is 45 inches. However only test prints will show you what really is acceptable.

2. If you do need the additional pixels, make your own template at the higher ppi - but make sure that the print company can handle the file. You could increase the jpeg compression to reduce the filesize (at reduced quality) and use some test prints to find the acceptable balance between reducing ppi and reducing jpeg quality.

Dave

[JJMack]

DPI is a Printers setting it set the size pixels will be Printed.   Image quality is more a less is the about of details you have for you image.   Details are stored as pixels the more pixels you have the more details you can have for your image. However, you need high quality details for good image quality. If you have a 16mp captured  image where the lens was completely out of focus you have  16,000,000 low quality bits of detail.  Good  Image quality depends on High quality pixels.  How big the Image prints depends on how big you print a pixel. High resolution pixels like 300DPI where pixels are 1/300" x 1/300"  will print image smaller and sharper then  printing  pixels that are 1"x 1"1DPI that  may look fine on a billboard a hundred yards away where you will not notice that same images printed at 300dpi is pasted on the bill board image.