Artwork Basics

Scale

Bleed

Trim Bleed

Finish Bleed

Dots Per Inch

Dots Per Inch is the measure of how many dots there are per inch of printed material.  The higher the number of dots the higher the quality of print.  It is used to express either the quality a print is printed at or an Image's Resolution.

A good way of visualising this is the diagram below.

Minimum Recommend Artwork Dpi

Work Type	Minimum DPI
Business Cards & Leaflets	300dpi
A0 Poster and Bigger	100dpi

Though we can print at lower resolutions depending on the viewing distance we always recommend a minimum DPI of 100

Dpi at Scale

Scale	Multiply DPI / Scale By	Example
25%	4
33%	3
10%	10
1%	100

Viewing Distance vs DPI

Viewing Distance	Min Resolution
0.6m  /  2ft	300 dpi
1m  /  3.3ft	180 dpi
1.5m  /  5ft	120 dpi
2m  /  6.5ft	90 dpi
3m  /  10ft	60 dpi
5m  /  16ft	35 dpi
10m  /  33ft	18 dpi
15m  /  50ft	12 dpi
50m  /  160ft	4 dpi
60m  /  200ft	3 dpi
200m  /  650ft	1 dpi

Low Resolution vs High Resolution

Low resolution is another way of saying low DPI or poor quality.  High Resolution is another way of saying high DPI or high quality.

The images below show a high DPI (High Resolution) vs a low DPI (Low Resolution) image.

While you can convert a low resolution image to a high resolution image, You cannot convert a Low Resolution image to a High Resolution. There is an alternative called upscaling, which you can read about below.

Upscaling Images

Upscaling is the process of converting an image from Low Resolution to High Resolution.  Basic upscaling is the simplest way of stretching a lower resolution image onto a larger display. Pixels from the lower resolution image are copied and repeated to fill out all the pixels of the higher resolution display.

More advance processes include Dithering (blurring the dots as you enlarge so you don't get a block effect) or AI (using computer prediction based on the surrounding dots to predict what the image should look like at a larger size).