Rebel XT - Transferred pics to PC at only 72 DPI?

[toozerosickz]

I'm VERY new to digital SLRs but have wanted a Rebel for about 2 years. I just got my XT a few days ago. When I'm transferring my pictures to my computer the pics are only 72 DPI. I have it on the large/fine setting and have tried the others besides RAW. Is there something I'm missing?

[Ikinaa]

Forget about the DPIs, the only thing that's counting are the pixels width to height...
If your pic is 8 Mpixels (3500x2500 or something like that) than it's all good...

[tim]

If you do a search on PPI or DPI here on POTN you'll get lots of information. Google would do it too, but it might not relate so closely to photography.

[chris clements]

The camera just exports the pixels to your pc: you (in your pc's image manipulation program) decide how many of them you want per inch.
72 is the typical default setting: the normal screen resolution. You need to print out at 200~300 DPI for photo quality.
Remember that your printer's definition of DPI is different to your pc's - the printer quotes how many individual 'squirts' of ink it can put down in an inch. With a six-ink printer, there could be up to six drops to reproduce each pixel from the camera. So 300 'real' pixels per inch translates as 300x6 = 1800 DPI in printer-speak.

[zacker]

lol.. i noticed that with my pics frommy 350D also... i took a bunch of "crap" pics in jpeg mode then as im cropping and resizing them i noticed some were in 72dpi.. could it be a setting with the jpeg mode? i believe all my raw files were 300. I resized some and they were really tiny so i went back and looked and syre enough they were 72 dpi. i believe that some jpegs were 72.. others were 300 (i think) does this camera choose to shoot in 72 dpi sometimes?? I was in bright sunlight and inside under a regular 100 watt, 4 bulb ceiling fan, where i used the oncamera flsh!
-zacker-

[Rob612]

Could that be a different setup of the camera if you do not use the creative zone modes but only the autos ? Gotta give it a try.

[kjonnnn]

The 72 is just the software default when you open the pic. Save it to what you want.

What I do is I save all the pics from my camera in an "Originals" folder unmanipulated. You can can then play with the setting and dpi/ppi and do FILE .... SAVE AS ... but still keep your pristine digital "negative." You'll always learn something new about manipulating your pics and saving the original untouched, you can always got back to how you shot it.

[KennyG]

Here we go again. The 72dpi number means nothing. Trust me, you could have 1 or 1 million in that field and your image would be no different. The image you get out of the camera has nothing to do with that dpi number, simply ignore it.

[tim]

http://www.photo.net/equipment/digital/basics/

[zacker]

Kenny, isnt the DPI the overall image resulution? I was re sizing pics to e mail and some were 72 and others were 300.. when i sized them down all the 300's looked a normal size on my screen i sized them to something like 3 x 5 and in PS CS2 they looked big enough to see really good but small enough to e mail easily.. when i did the same to the 72 DPI's, they were tiny.. so, i guess what im asking is.. if i resize a 72 dpi to 5x3 and print it out, it will look the same as a 300 DPI at 5x3??
Thanks!
-zacker-

[robertwgross]

Kenny, isnt the DPI the overall image resulution? I was re sizing pics to e mail and some were 72 and others were 300.. when i sized them down all the 300's looked a normal size on my screen i sized them to something like 3 x 5 and in PS CS2 they looked big enough to see really good but small enough to e mail easily.. when i did the same to the 72 DPI's, they were tiny.. so, i guess what im asking is.. if i resize a 72 dpi to 5x3 and print it out, it will look the same as a 300 DPI at 5x3??
Thanks!
-zacker-

Zacker, I don't think you have been reading.

Let's divide things up first. There is the image capture. Then there may be editing on the computer. Then there may be printing of the image. At the time of image capture, your camera can capture about 3500 pixels by 2300 pixels. That is the image file. Now, some people don't or can't edit an image, so the camera decides to put a tag on the file for printing resolution, such as 72 DPI or 300 DPI. Don't worry about it, though, because that is only a default tag, and it is only for those who don't or can't edit an image.

Now, once you get the image file onto your computer, you can do the RAW conversion or whatever other editing you do. It is at this stage that you may want to change that default tag to be some other value that you prefer, like 150, 240, or 300. That will have something to do with how large you think you might like to print the image. If you never intend to print it, then it means ZERO.

If you think you want to shove the file to some online printer company, then they may have standards of what they expect. At that point, some will want your image tags to make sense. For example, if you want 300 DPI, then your inch size dimensions better make sense for the overall pixels. If your file was small, and you want a large print in inches, then you may have too few total pixels to make more than 50 or 100 DPI in the print. In that case, you might choose to interpolate-resample to increase the total pixels. However, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Resampling, if done correctly and intelligently, and improve appearance in a large print. But you can go only so far. If you start with crap, your print will end up as crap.

---Bob Gross---

[Poco]

If you think you want to shove the file to some online printer company, then they may have standards of what they expect. At that point, some will want your image tags to make sense. For example, if you want 300 DPI, then your inch size dimensions better make sense for the overall pixels. If your file was small, and you want a large print in inches, then you may have too few total pixels to make more than 50 or 100 DPI in the print. In that case, you might choose to interpolate-resample to increase the total pixels. However, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
---Bob Gross---

While I agree that having sufficient Dots Per Inch is important if you are printing a photograph I would be surprised if any printing service actually looked at the DPI embedded of an image. What matters is that you think it will be enough. That is, if you are sending a 3000x2000 image for printing at 8"x12" it will be 250 DPI. Any printing service that looked at your DPI in the photo and resampled your photo down to that before printing would go out of business so fast.

So it is useful to figure out the DPI yourself (250 for that print example) to determine if you think you will get an acceptable print, but don't worry about the value in the file.

[robertwgross]

While I agree that having sufficient Dots Per Inch is important if you are printing a photograph I would be surprised if any printing service actually looked at the DPI embedded of an image.

Sometimes the service does it by automation and sometimes manually. Some will require a minimum and some require a maximum.

---Bob Gross---

[glangston]

72 is the "screen resolution" of your monitor. ...or 96 for some and that is all it is. Typically you'll print at 300 dpi and in reality can exceed that to no real visual benefit. This is the same reason why we mostly scan photos etc. at 200-300 dpi, although you will see scanners for slides that go much higher to compensate for the small scale of the negative/positive.

[Poco]

Sometimes the service does it by automation and sometimes manually. Some will require a minimum and some require a maximum.

---Bob Gross---

I get that there are likely minimum and maximum DPI for realistic printing and I understand if photo services have some limits, but what I'm saying is that it would be insane for them to use the number embeded in the file itself.

For example, if I sent a 3000x2000 photo with the DPI in the file set to 72 to be printed at 8x10 I would not expect them to scale it down to 720x576 before printing it (so that there were only 72 pixels per inch) - that would be the end of them.

If you have calibrated a publishing application like Pagemaker (does that still exist?) to scale everything to real inches on your monitor then the DPI is important if you want the result to come out at exactly the same size as what you see. This is still not important for either viewing or printing photographs.

[lostdoggy]

Now lets say you are interesred in printing the picture. It was a Kodak Moment. Once in a lifetime photo opportunity. You want to blow it up to say 13X19, I think that is the size most visual art class requires these days. You took it. You chimp it. Historgram is right on the money. You down load it on the computer. Low and behold the picture was only 72DPI. Now you run it through PS CS2. You process it. You resize it to 300DPI 13X19. flatten it and send it to print preview. Hit the print button. while waiting for print to be done, you Made yourself a Lean Pocket. came back and what did you find. Monet???

[twalker294]

This is the best page to read to dispel the 72 dpi myth:

http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html

It is written in relation to scanners but applies the same to digital photography.

Todd