DPI measures printer resolution, but is also used for monitors, scanners, and digital cameras. Higher DPI means more refined text or image. Each device has its own specifications for DPI.
Dots per inch (DPI) is a measure of printer resolution, although it is commonly applied, somewhat inappropriately, to monitors, scanners, and even digital cameras.
For printers, the DPI specification indicates the number of dots in each inch that the printer can reach to form text or graphics on the printed page. The higher this specification, the more refined the text or image will be. To conserve ink, a lower concentration is often used for drafts or routine documents. This setting could be 300 or even 150 DPI. High resolution starts at 600 for standard printers and can far exceed that for color printers designed to produce digital photographs or other high resolution images.
In the case of monitors, DPI refers to the number of pixels per inch of screen. The technically correct term is “PPI” or pixels per inch, but DPI is commonly used. A display setting of 1280 x 1024 has 1.3 million pixels on the screen, while a setting of 800 x 600 has 480,000, which is less than half the resolution of the highest setting. With fewer pixels, the image will not have the sharpness that can be achieved with higher saturation. Each dot or pixel reflects a certain color and brightness. The higher the number of pixels, the more detailed the image can be. More pixels also require more memory, and it can take longer to “paint” images, depending on your system’s video card, processor, and other components.
Scanners also work in different resolutions. Scan time will increase at higher DPI settings, as the scanner has to collect and store more data. However, the higher the resolution required, the richer the resulting image will be. A high resolution, or DPI setting, reproduces the original image more faithfully than lower DPI settings are capable of. A high setting is required if the image is to be enlarged. Otherwise the magnified image will appear “blocky” or blurry because the software has no information to fill in the extra space when the image is magnified. Instead it “explodes” each pixel to “smear” it over a larger area.
Digital cameras have their own specifications in terms of megapixels and resolution, but DPI is also often mentioned in this context. Because it refers in all cases to the output image, a digital camera capable of meeting today’s most basic resolution standards—3.0 megapixels and higher—will produce an image capable of taking advantage of a very high DPI setting on the printer. However, if your printer can only support 600 DPI, the extra resolution from the camera will be lost in the printing process. When purchasing or upgrading components, it is therefore critical that each product is capable of supporting the highest standards of any interface product.
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