Print Size & Resolution Checker

Your photo does not have a DPI

This is the thing most print problems come down to. A digital photo has pixel dimensions and nothing else. DPI — or PPI, which is the right word for pixels per printed inch — only exists once you pick a physical size. A 3000-pixel-wide file is 300 PPI at ten inches across and 150 PPI at twenty. The file did not change; the print did.

That is why "set it to 300 DPI" is not something you can do to a file without also deciding how big it prints. Some images carry a density value in their header, and this tool shows it when present, but changing that number resamples nothing and adds no detail. Only the pixel count decides how large a photo prints sharply.

What the grades mean

• 300 PPI and above — fine art and gallery printing, where a viewer stands close.
• 240 to 299 — a normal photo print. Indistinguishable from 300 at arm’s length, and what we recommend against rather than the stricter figure.
• 180 to 239 — fine for anything viewed from a step back, such as a framed wall print.
• 150 to 179 — large format only: posters and banners seen from across a room.
• Under 150 — visibly soft at that size. Print smaller, or have the file enlarged properly.

What it cannot tell you

Resolution is only one part of whether a print looks good. Focus, motion blur, noise, heavy JPEG compression and a file that was already enlarged once all cost detail that a pixel count cannot see. An 8000-pixel scan of a blurred photograph is still a blurred photograph.

If a photo is too small for the size you need, enlarging it properly is work we do — restoration and enlargement rebuilds detail by hand rather than letting software invent it.