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).