I tested a 72 dpi canvas versus 300 dpi for a big print job last month

Had to make a 24x36 inch poster for a local art fair. My first draft was on my usual 72 dpi screen canvas. The print shop sent back a sample and it looked super blurry. So I redid the whole thing from scratch on a 300 dpi canvas at the right print size. The difference was night and day, the lines were sharp and colors were solid. It cost me an extra day of work but saved the whole project. Anyone else run into this when scaling up for physical prints?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_thomas22d ago

Oh man, that's the worst! @felixfisher is right, you can't just stretch pixels. I made a huge banner for my kid's school once and learned the same lesson the hard way. The text looked like a blurry mess until I started over with the right size.

oscarwilson25d ago

Glad you caught that before the final print. It's a super common mistake, but dpi doesn't really work like that on the digital canvas side. The real issue is starting at the final print dimensions, not the dpi setting. A 72 dpi file at 24x36 inches just doesn't have enough pixel info. Starting at 300 dpi at that size gives you the pixels you need.

felixfisher24d ago

Yeah, @oscarwilson nailed it. So many people just change the dpi number and think that magically adds pixels, but it's totally backwards. You gotta start with the size you want to print and make sure the pixel grid is big enough from the start.