72 vs 300 dpi

When do you convert your images to a higher dpi? When I first open a photo and go to Image: Image Size in PS it says that the image resolution is at 72 dpi. I want to change the resolution to 300dpi or larger for printing purposes but it takes my PC forever to make the changes (old and slow PC). So my question, is it ok to do all my editing in PS at 72dpi, and then resave the image at 300dpi just for printing or will this have a negative affect on the final print?

Thanks
Michael

Michael,

The dpi settings in PS simply tell the printer what output resolution to use. As long as you don't resize the TOTAL pixel dimension of your file while you work, you can safely ignore the dpi setting until it's time to actually print. That's when you change it to the higher number...

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Originally Posted by Asylum Steve

Michael,

The dpi settings in PS simply tell the printer what output resolution to use. As long as you don't resize the TOTAL pixel dimension of your file while you work, you can safely ignore the dpi setting until it's time to actually print. That's when you change it to the higher number...

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Thanks Steve, you da man!!!!

One thing - are you trying to keep the same print dimensions but change the resolution from 72 to 300? That would give you a file that is many times bigger than the original. It also won't necessarily give you a good file to print - the computer is filling in the holes, so to speak - it's not original information in the file at time of capture.

There are ways to make a digital photograph print larger, but if your resolution goes from 72dpi up to 300dpi, the print size should shrink considerably. Whether or not you need 300dpi to get a good print and how large a file can be interpolated (up-sized) is the subject of another thread or two (or three...).

Hello my name is Jesse I am a Artist and I do retouching on photograph and compression for the web, to answer you question dpi is an important issue, 300 dpi is photo quality and ideal for printing but you can get away with printing at 150 dpi, 72 dpi would be for something that you post on the web or send in an email. If you are doing digital prints and you whether you are shooting or scanning the pictures its always good to make the set the camera to the highest megapixel setting or scan at larger resolution and size it down rather than trying to blow it up and run the risk of it being pixelated when you do, then when you resize it won't be a problem you can change to the scaling on the options of the scanners program to make it bigger and as far as if you have a digital camera 3 megapixels is 2400 x1024 at 72 dpi, i am not sure I have it exactly right but its close to that when you put it in the 8 x 10 at 300 dpi document its still too big. So size it down and your done. The only down side of it is your file size is going to go up a little.