Note that this is discussion of printer capabilities not a discussion of the PPI needed to provide enough information for a visually appealing print on a sufficiently capable printer. For a discussion of that topic, see How large can I print my digital photos?
The answer to this question will vary with the underlying printing technology. At close viewing distances, images will start to look acceptable as low as 70 DPI of continuous tone color, and improve through 300-600 DPI. At some point in this range, typical viewers will become unable see any improvement from further increases in DPI, but it will depend upon the person and viewing conditions. Note that very few devices are continuous tone devices, or have so many discrete tones per pixel that can be thought of as continuous tone devices. Dye sublimation printers can be viewed as continuous tone in many cases, and can produce excellent results at just 300 DPI for this reason. Inkjet technology uses a small number of base ink colors (typically between 3 and 9) to give us the appearance of continuous tone. The DPI rating of an inkjet printer tells us the number of ink droplets of one the base colors that can fit in a linear inch of paper. Those with a penchant for combinatorics, might estim
Related Questions
- Note that this is discussion of printer capabilities not a discussion of the PPI needed to provide enough information for a visually appealing print on a sufficiently capable printer. For a discussion of that topic, see How large can I print my digital photos?
- Do print queues error logs note the IP address of the printer or the queue in question?
- What software is needed to print to the DiscPainter printer?
