If there’s one thing that great printed pieces have in common, it’s crisp, vibrant, and high quality imagery.  The photography you incorporate into your design helps give it life and make it eye catching.  Unfortunately, it’s also the issue of photography that can challenge your project when it goes to print if you don’t prepare properly on the front end.

There are a few things to keep in mind before incorporating a photo into your design, and ultimately sending it to the printer. The most important is that the image is print ready. Print ready means the size, resolution and colors are the exact specifications needed by a digital or offset commercial press. Once the file has been sent and committed to the printer, changes and edits will only cost time and money.

The resolution of the image is determined by its DPI, or dots per inch. The higher the DPI, the higher the resolution of the image. Printers require a minimum of 300 DPI on all images designed into your piece. So, before including imaging into your brochure, postcard, invitation or other materials to print, check to make sure that your photography is the required 300 DPI.

There is a little more to the story, however. The DPI of your image is directly related to its physical size. If you’ve got 300 DPI, but your image is only 3”x 5” and you want it to be 8”x 10” in your piece, the chances are slim that you’ll be able to increase the physical size and keep the required resolution. Doing so will cause the image to become pixilated. You can always make an image smaller, but you can’t necessarily make a small image larger.

That being said, the best place to start is with your camera. Check your camera’s owner’s manual for instructions changing your photo quality to the maximum setting. Changing your camera’s quality will also take up more space on the media card, so keep that in mind as you begin shooting. And images from camera phones normally do not work; the image quality just isn’t there.
 
If you have an image that you are unsure of the quality, it is best to open the file in a program like Adobe Photoshop and check the properties. Photoshop will allow you to see the resolution and make sure that your image is 300 DPI. Just looking at an image on your computer screen or printing it out will not work – it can print just fine on your office printer, and look acceptable on the screen, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right resolution to go on press.

Proper planning before print can ensure speed and quality for the final product!