Photo Resolution for Powershot Pro 1

Hello,

I'm hoping someone on here who knows technical specs better than I can answer a resolution question. My husband and I own our own marketing/design/writi​ng business and we are always working with photos and graphics that need to be print quality (300 dpi or higher). I know about megapixels, photo size, and so forth--and those are all fine for what I'm doing. I've set the quality of the camera to super fine, adjusted the size of the photo, played with all the other bells and whistles. However, when the image is brought in to Adobe Photoshop for editing, the resolution is only 180dpi. Anyone who's worked with print and photos before knows that jumping a 180 up to 300 or higher can cause problems given the subject of the shot.

This is quite distressing. I've called the tech support people who have informed me that the dpi setting is an internal hard-setting and cannot be changed; that any dpi beyond 180 needs to be done through photo editing software. But, as I've mentioned, depending on the shot if you push 180 to 300, or worse 600 dpi, the image starts to fragment in the details, giving a very granular appearance and making it unsuitable for high end printing.

Can anyone give me some insight or recommend another camera that takes photos at 300dpi WITHOUT any manipulation? I will gladly provide further information to anyone who asks for more (sometimes questions are easier to answer than just trying to remember everything that needs telling).

Thanks in advance for your efforts,
Terri

Don't stress yourself about it. It's nothing.

DPI is just a number. The file stays the same, but if you have a file of 1000 by 500 pixels and print it at 100 dpi, you're gonna get 10 by 5 inch print.

If you print it at 200 dpi, you're gonna get 5 by 2.5 inch print.

You can change this setting without affecting the image file itself. It's just the final resolution and the size of the print that's affected.

I'm just curious. What's the name of the company that you run?

What size do you want to print your images ??
The Canon Pro1 at max image size takes photos at 3264 x 2448 pixels, so a 300DPI photo is approx 10"x8". As the print size increases above that the DPI will reduce.

At 180DPI the print size is approx 18"x13" so if you want 300DPI at that size then you'll have to up-sample the photo in your image editor.

DPI Doldrums

We actually own two companies, one is our design/writing/marketi​ng firm called Freelance Alchemy (www.freelancealchemy.c​om) and the other is an indoor advertising company called Niche Indoor Advertising (www.nicheindoor.com). My husband does the writing, design, website building, and I do design, photography, office management, and the financials.

Thanks for the info!

Oops...

DPI is dots per inch, I know that it affects the size of the photo, however, in order for an image to be print quality (i.e. a professional printer not a desktop version) it has to be 300 dpi or higher. In converting a photo taken with my Powershot Pro in Photoshop, I've noticed a reduction of quality. But, we purchase stock photography on occasion and those images come at 300 dpi; when you zoom in you can't see any pixelation until you get past 500%. I want my photos to be that good from the first shot...I have an older Kodak (by no means a professional grade) 3.1 megapixel that provides shots at 230 dpi; granted the quality isn't as good since it's a 3.1 mp, and utterly bereft of custom settings. I guess my dilemma is that at some point I'll take a great shot and want to print it off a press but won't be able to because of bad quality.

Sorry, Doc never wrote any of that, I put my reply in between the quotes section...my bad...

Learning still,
Terri

Don't worry, Photobabe. Believe me, you don't have a
problem. Just crop the image to your liking and then
send it to press preparation without resizing -- they'll
know what to do with it, unless they're also as confused
as you are.

But if you really want to "change" your photo from 180
to 300 dpi; do this in Photoshop:

go to Image>Image size, then UNCHECK "Resample Image."
Enter 300 in the field for dpi (paste over default of 180, 230,
or whatever number was there before) and click ok.

So now you have an image that's being displayed at 300 dpi
according to the PS rulers, which is really what you're looking
for. The original image itself or its absolute resolution hasn't
changed, the no. of pixels 3264 x 2448 remains constant;
you're just measuring it differently now.

Sigh, I wish I had a dollar every time this non-problem has
come up. Isn't there something Canon or Adobe or whomever
can do so that people don't have this sort of confusion? Don't
you just hate it when you send an image to somebody, they
open it up on their PS, and the send it back saying that they
wanted it in 300dpi, implying that you are the idiot? And then
you have to teach them this stuff, and sometimes even then
they'll stay resistant against what you're saying -- they just
can't believe that someone could know better than they.

Exactly the same advice as I was going to offer
If you noticed degradation in the past when changing dpi in photoshop, then that will be because you had the 'resample' box checked, or you were using other software that automatically resampled. When it is not checked it is just altering the distribution of numbers and does not change the file.