More About Photography DPI

Photography resolution is measured in Dots Per Inch (DPI) and refers to the amount of information or pixels a digital photo contains.

The higher the resolution a picture is scanned at, the more detail is captured and the more flexibility you will have to enlarge and edit the pictures later.

Depending on what you plan to do with your scanned images will determine the best resolution for you to chose.

This is the standard for nearly all print media.  

Digitizing old photos at 300 DPI is perfect for viewing and sharing on digital devices and can be printed the same size as the original without any loss of image quality.

Printing larger than the original size may result in blurry or pixelated pictures.

Best pricing.  Recommended for photos printed after 1980.

600 DPI will capture twice the amount of pixel data as 300 DPI.

With this additional data, it allows you to reprint your photos at twice the size of the original without loss of quality. This is the best resolution for projecting images.

If you choose to digitally edit the image, you will have more detail to work with which will help ensure better quality.

600 DPI costs more to scan because it takes more time to scan at this resolution.

Premium pricing. Recommended for photos printed before 1980 and small photos [less than 3"x3"].

Scanning photos at 1200 DPI allows you to make reprints up to 6 times the size of the original without loss of quality.

It also affords the digital editor the ability to perform very detailed edits of the image, or portions of the image.

The downside of using 1200 DPI is that the data files are much larger and may take more time to download.

Scanning photos at 1200 DPI also costs more because it takes much more time to scan at this resolution..

Custom pricing.  It would be a rare situation that one would need this level of resolution.