FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions

1. Are your photos 300 DPI?

Digital images do not have a DPI. Simply put, DPI stands for "dots per inch" and digital images have only dots, i.e. pixels. A digital image file doesn't have "inches" until it is made physical - displayed on a monitor or printed on paper. At that point, the DPI is determined by the screen resolution or the DPI setting chosen for the printer.

The only time digital images can (sort of) be said to have a DPI is when they were created by scanning a print or slide, which was common practice before digital cameras became widespread. In this case, the DPI is the quality setting the scanner used to create the digital image from the print. When licensing an image that was scanned, it is indeed important to be sure the DPI setting used by the scanner was high enough, so that the photo will look good when printed again. Therefore publishers got in the habit of requesting "300dpi images".

Unfortunately, confusion on this issue is further perpetuated by many digital cameras, which embed a default DPI in the photo's metadata for "convenience" - to help estimate the size the photo will be when displayed. Often this DPI is rather low, such as 72dpi (typical for screen display), and this can understandably alarm publishers who aren't aware of the above. Please be assured that this metadata tag is nothing more than a tag and does not affect the quality of the photo. Photographers could change that tag in Photoshop to read "300dpi", but it would not change the image itself one bit, so it doesn't make sense do so.

For more information about DPI and digital images, please see the following resources:

• All About Digital Photos - The Myth of DPI (an especially clear explanation)
• Wikipedia - DPI or PPI in digital image files
• Johnny Pixel - DPI Confusion: Scaling Down the Myth
• Better Digital Photography - DPI (Dots per inch) explained (includes an explanation of why some digital cameras label images as 72dpi)

2. How do I know a photo will be of sufficient quality and size when printed?

If not DPI, how can you determine the resolution of a digital image? The simple answer is number of pixels. The more pixels are available in an image file, the more inches you'll get when you squeeze 300 pixels into an inch on paper (at 300 dpi). The number of pixels in a digital image is most commonly given as width x height (e.g. 4000 x 2658px). You'll find this number on all our photo pages, under "Digital size" or "Resolution". This is the number you need to ensure is high enough for your intended print size and print quality.

Generally, more pixels is better, but you may not need as large a resolution as you think - the smaller the print will be, the smaller the digital image can be with no loss in quality. How many inches you get out of a digital image depends on the DPI you choose when printing. So in order to judge whether a digital image is large enough for your needs, you need to know: (1) your desired DPI and (2) your desired print size. Once you have these numbers, use this formula: pixels/DPI = inches.

For example, if you license a 4000 x 2658 pixel photo, you can set your printer to 300dpi and create a print up to 13.3 (4000/300) x 18.9 (2658/300) inches with no loss in quality. Or you could set the print quality a little lower to 240dpi, and get a larger print: 16.7 x 11.1 inches. And so on. The higher the DPI, the smaller the resulting print, and vice versa. Large murals will need to use a small DPI, unless you can find a digital image with extremely high resolution.

3. How much do your photos cost?

Technically, you don't buy our photos, but rather licenses to copy them. Our licenses are all Rights-Managed, so the price primarily depends on how you want to use the photo. We also offer resolution options so you don't pay for more pixels than you need. And a few photos may cost more or less than others due to uniqueness or quality. Prices are displayed on photo pages.

4. Any other questions?

Please contact us.