What do “1200 pixels at 300 dpi” submission requirements mean?
Asked 10/23/2014
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I’m submitting a photo to an exhibit. Their rules say: “Entries must be in JPEG format sized at 300 dpi on a CD (4” width of image, 1,200 pixels at 300 dpi is the largest dimension please).” If accepted, the final print can be up to 36" × 36". I don’t see this clearly in my photo properties. What file are they actually asking for?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
11y ago
2 Answers
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Assuming the photo is square (from the 36" x 36" max) It sounds like the largest photo they want is a 1200 x 1200 pixel image. You will need to compress your photo down to under 1200 x 1200 pixels and save it as a JPEG. The Dots Per Inch (DPI) is a way of telling the image viewing program the scale of each pixel. Some software programs allow you to view an image at actual size. The program would then take the resolution of your image, divided by the DPI, and represent the resulting scaled image on the screen. If your image were the same resolution, but a higher DPI, the image would should up smaller on the screen, even though it's resolution is the same.
They are most likely requesting a 300 DPI, 1200 pixel image so that they won't have to do any image conversion when they print them out on 4 inch paper to review the submitted photos.
Originally by user33987. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user33987
11y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
They are most likely asking for a JPEG whose longest side is no more than 1,200 pixels. The “300 dpi” part is mainly print/layout metadata, not image quality by itself.
In practice:
- Resize the evaluation JPEG so its largest dimension is 1,200 pixels.
- Save it as a JPEG.
- If your software allows it, set the resolution metadata to 300 dpi/ppi, but the important part is the pixel dimensions.
Why this is confusing:
- Pixels describe the actual image size in digital terms.
- DPI properly refers to printer dots; PPI is more accurate for digital images.
- For screen viewing, the pixel dimensions matter far more than the dpi setting.
Their example “4 inches wide at 300 dpi = 1,200 pixels” is just 4 × 300 = 1,200. So they likely want a small review file that would print at 4 inches wide at 300 ppi without further resizing.
The final 36" × 36" print requirement is separate and refers to the accepted print, not the review JPEG.
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