You may not realise it but the resolution of an image is vital to the overall quality of the finished photograph. When you look at a picture on a computer screen, you’ll notice very little difference to the quality of an image that’s as low as 72 dpi when compared to an image that’s 300 dpi.

So why does it matter when they’re printed?

Dpi stands for ‘dots per inch’ and represents the number of individual dots per inch within the picture. 72 dpi is very low quality, but is as high as the Internet will work on, so when you’re looking at pictures on websites you’re merely looking at images that are 72 dpi. They look fine on the web, but if you were to print them they’d look awful.

Instead for the printed media you’ll require a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. When you’re looking to buy images from professional photography websites, you’ll tend to find that the higher quality the images, the more expensive they are to buy.

The important thing to remember is that you can easily reduce a higher quality image, but you can’t increase the quality of a low-resolution image. Therefore if you’re looking to print a photograph, particularly for a canvas print, you’ll want to use an image that is as high a resolution as possible, with a minimum of 300 dpi.

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