Is there a really big difference between printing a 300 DPI image and a 275 DPI image? The image is in PDF format. It is for the cover os a book that is printed by a print-on-demand publishing company and I can not get the images higher than 275 because I did not scan them myself. The company recommends 300. Would it be a waste of time to use the 275/ They are scans of images that are from the 1860’s so some are a bit blurry just bcause that’s the way they are. I am not worried about blurriness as much as I am concerned about pixilation.
Thanks!
If you are trying to enlarge the image to a larger physical size than it is originally you may see pixelation of the image. If it will be the same size or smaller you probably don’t need to worry.
You can resample your photo to a higher resolution in your graphics program, but the software just guesses at what the missing data would look like. With old photos that wouldn’t be a problem and then you could use the sharpen tool to define the edges better.
There are also special programs with sophisticated algorithms, like Reshade, that do a pretty go job of filling in the blanks for the missing data.
Bottom line, if you are trying to take a small photo and make it the cover for a book, I would recommend you resample it to 300 dpi in your photo software. If it is to remain the same size image or smaller your probably don’t need to.
Experiment a little and see what results you can get on your computer. If the image is blocky on your monitor that is the way it will look in print.
I would suggest using the 275 and scaling it down just a tad. That will give you the results of a 300dpi picture. But if you can not change the size…275 won’t kill you.
25 DPI doesn’t seem like a huge difference between the two..go with whatever the company recommends. It’s not gonna use that much more ink, after all.