Ideal Printing Resolution

Have a design that’s ready to be printed but when it comes to the resolution? Fret not! Today’s blog post will serve as your go-to guide for your design/ photo resolution.

What is resolution?

In order to determine whether or not the resolution is sufficient, you will have to decide on the size of the print first. Resolution works in relation to the size of the print. So, a photo with a resolution of 3024 x 4032 will work great for an A4-sized print but it will not be ideal for an A3 or bigger.

When looking at resolution, we look at the number of dots per inch (DPI). The magic number would be 300 dots per inch. This simply means that there are 300 dots squeezed into the area of an inch. So, the lower the DPI, the lesser dots there are within the area. This will result in the photo/ design appearing pixelated.

Exporting Your Artwork

 

You may be designing on Illustrator or Photoshop. Everything looks great right up till you hit export. You realise that what you see on your artboard is not exactly what is exported. Do check on your export settings. Both Illustrator and Photoshop allow you to choose the export resolution. For this you would always want to select the highest option which is 300 DPI.

More often than not, this setting is overlooked, causing issues with the quality of designs.

Despite your photo/ design looking great on your screen, you should always check the resolution as what’s on the screen isn’t always going to reflect what comes out on a print.

We hope that this blog post has been useful and it has cleared your doubts. If you have any other questions, do not hesitate to drop us an email at ask.lightningprints@gmail.com

Till our next post, cheers!