Have you ever wondered why pictures printed from the Internet are usually blurry? It all has to do with print resolution...
In order to understand why pictures printed from the Internet are usually blurry, it helps to know some background on how images are displayed.
The Lowdown on Resolution
Printers create images using tiny dots placed closely together. These dots are so small and close together that the brain usually interprets them as one solid color. The ratio of dots to the area they are in is called resolution. If there are a lot of the dots in a specific area, the image is high resolution. A low resolution image has the same amount of area but fewer dots. The standard print resolution is 300 dots per inch (dpi).
Images on computer screens or the Internet are also made up of dots, but these dots are square and are called pixels. Resolution works the same for digital images as for print ones, but the big difference is that on-screen resolution is much less than print resolution. The standard resolution for web images is 72 pixels per inch (ppi). An image that is 72 ppi is considered a low resolution image.
Blurry Pictures
The difference between web resolution and print resolution is the reason images printed from the Internet tend to look blurry. At 200 dpi and higher, the brain will interpret the resolution dots as a solid color. While print resolution is higher than 200 dpi, web resolution is lower, so our brains interpret the graphic as blurry or pixelated, as opposed to a smooth continuous image.
What To Do…
All images have a set amount of dots, and it is very difficult to add more. Fortunately, there are a couple of workarounds to printing blurry pictures from the internet.
-If possible, substitute low resolution images with high resolution images. Because they have a greater amount of pixels to begin with, high resolution photos will translate better into print.
-Find large pictures and print them smaller. Shrinking an image in size will reduce the amount of area the dots have to cover, thus raising the image resolution. Photo editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop have features to easily manage image size versus resolution. For many people, expensive image-editing software is overkill, and simply scaling images smaller will help blurry pictures look a little bit more recognizable.
-Carrie, Marketing Coordinator
Photo of a ribbon bow at 72 ppi
Bow photo close-up showing dots (dpi)
Bow photo close-up showing pixels (ppi)