Understanding Resolution; PPI, DPI for Print and Digital | PhotoJoseph’s Photo Moment 2017-02-28
Resolution is a topic that many beginners (and even advanced users!) get confused on easily. This discussion aims to clear up confusion around DPI and PPI, native camera resolution, scaling in apps like Photoshop, and more.
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DISCLAIMER: I am a professional “photographic storyteller”; a photographer and filmmaker, and also a Panasonic LUMIX Luminary. This means I am sponsored by Panasonic and therefore naturally biased towards their gear. I regularly state this in my videos, but in case I don’t say it, it’s still true. You can learn more about the Luminary team at
Thanks for watching!
-PhotoJoseph
Poland's here, but I'm on holiday elsewhere hah 🇵🇱
I really am thankful for your info 🙂
Great explanation!
Please give me your opinion :
600 * 600 dpi ( ppi ) with 30 bit depth
Would such resolution be sufficient for a board of directors meeting ?
This is great information – IF you have Photo Shop. I'm working with the POC on Windows 10.
Dude , spent 21 mints to say nothing ,,,, please focus on topics , Thanks
thanks for this joseph – when you demonstrated how all those changes happen using photoshop – can you get similar info tabulated in lightroom (where i do all my printing from) ?
thank you, thank you, thank you. I did not know any of this information and you explained it all perfectly. thank you.
This guy deserves more subs/ views/likes
He is awesome!
Thank you so much PhotoJoseph! This is one of the better videos explaining Rez/PPI/DPI. I've been in the biz for some years and this subject still gets hairy; until now. Cheers!
ty from a total beginner that takes clients piks by e mail .things have too be professional ive still got lots too learn but ty for your input …
FAR too many incorrect references to DPI when he is referring to PPI. The terms should NEVER be used interchangeably.
Exactly. I don't understand why some people don't get this.
Finally, after hours of looking I stumbled on some good stuff. At least someone knows what he is talking about
Great info mate thnx
5 minutes in and i think it would be great if you were a teacher at my university
Awesome, Thank you!!
I had a similar resolution argument on the Aperture forums a few years ago. Oddly it was with one of the forum's prolific posters who was otherwise an expert on Aperture. Some people just can't be convinced but I applaud you for trying.
I have the Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 Pro lens mentioned near the end. It does not have image stabilization built in so you will need to rely on the camera body IBIS. I think it will work great with the GH5. In fact I hope to try it some day. One feature that won't work is the Depth from Defocus on the GH5 that speeds focusing. It only works with Lumix lenses whose bokeh characteristics are in the camera's built-in database or with newer Lumix lenses that have the lens bokeh information in the lens firmware.
Similarly, some of the Olympus body features won't work with Lumix lenses. One example is the Pro Capture feature of the OM-D EM-1 MKII. It continuously captures frames while the shutter button is half pressed and retains the previous 14 frames when the shot is taken so you don't miss fast moving subjects. But it only works when using an Olympus Pro lens.
The take-away is some features require tight integration between camera and lens so using the same manufacturer body and lens will always have advantages.
It is wonderful to see you responding with an entire video to a user question! Thumbs up!
I also think those EXIF-PPI-values are rather arbitrary. I had a quick look and found Olympus E-M5 mkII and E-M1 (both mFT 16MP) with 350PPI, Panasonic G85 (mFT 16MP…) with 180PPI, Pentax K-1 (FullFrame 36MP) with 300PPI, Fuji X-T2 (APS-C with 24MP) with 300PPI and my own lovely Olympus E-520 (FourThirds with 10MP) with 314PPI. I also have a scan from a 6x9cm slide with 17.8MP at 1588PPI.
I remember when I started digital photography I had viewer that showed the image size in cm… And today I finished a cover of a book in inkscape, had to import a jpeg and inkscape asked me if I would use the NATIVE PPI for the embedded size of the image in the svg. So there might be some use cases where applications query the resolution of a photo not by megapixel but by its "resolution in PPI".
But for printing all this really shouldn't matter. Printers don't care for noise or captured detail in the image. They just map pixel count to print size… As long as you don't resize the image all should go well.