The DPI/PPI of your visuals

If you use raster visuals on your poster, they need to be of the right quality. The term we use for this quality, is DPI or PPI (Dots Per Inch/Pixels Per Inch; the last one is used the least, but is actually the correct terminology). The higher the DPI/PPI, the better the quality. For print all images must be of 300 DPI/PPI. For digital media it needs to be 72 DPI/PPI. On this page you can see how to check this in various tools for the images you use on your poster.

Photo robot - by Rock'n Roll Monkey on Unsplash

PPI

Check it for the tool of your choice:

Adobe Photoshop

  1. Open your file in Adobe Photoshop.
  2. In the top navigation bar, go to Image > Image Size.
  3. The 'Resolution' needs to be at least 300.

Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector based tool, therefor the PPI does not need to be checked. If you imported external raster images in Illustrator, check the PPI in a tool such as Photoshop.

Microsoft PowerPoint

The external images imported in PowerPoint need to be checked by another tool, such as Adobe Photoshop or GIMP (free raster based tool).

Apple Preview

  1. Open your image in Apple Preview.
  2. Go to the top navigation bar > Tools > Adjust Size... .
  3. Uncheck 'Resample image'.
  4. Next to 'Resolution', fill in 300.
  5. Click OK.