Hey guys,
So I don’t know much about print, but I’m currently working in a marketing department and my manager wants 300dpi images, he’s a bit bemused as to why the engine can only churn out 72dpi. Can anyone shed some light on what the best practice to get very high quality printing please?
Thanks a lot!
Digital image files are default to 72DPI, because it doesn’t really matter on a computer screen. When you want to render an image for print you need to calculate the resolution that you need—so for an 8.5x11 paper that would be a 2,550x3,300 pixel image. So you would render to that resolution (or higher) and then resize and crop in Photoshop. In Photoshop you can change the dpi setting for the image (make sure your inches dimensions remains the same) and that’s all you need to do.
Use the High Resolution Screen SHot function. The button is on the dropdown menu with the arrow in the upper left corner of the viewport.
When using the high res screen shot, you get to adjust a multiplier and then take a screenshot. In your case you would set the multiplier to x4.
I don’t really understand - so you’re saying DPI isn’t really a thing when working with digital files?
Let’s say I render an 8k screenshot in UE4 and I wanted that printed in 300dpi on an a4 brochure, how would I go about setting that file up so it prints with the highest quality possible?
DPI means dots per inch, which doesn’t matter on a computer screen since the screen can be many sizes and resolutions, what matters is the pixel resolution. If you have an 8K screenshot (7680×4320 pixel resolution) and you want to print at 300dpi, then simply divide the resolution by 300, which would equal 25.6" x 14.4"
If you want to print a full A4 paper size, that’s 8.27" × 11.69" so multiply by 300 which equals 2,481 x 3,507 pixels which would be the minimum resolution you would need to render to print at that size.
If you have your image rendered, open it in Photoshop and go to Image>Image Size and then adjust the Resolution setting which should be default set at 72 pixels/inch, change it to 300
Ah ok, yeah I noticed you can alter the DPI in Photoshop, I’ll keep this in mind, thanks!