topic Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

burgermael — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 03:15:13 GMT

when i go image size in photoshop, my images are always 240 pixels per inch but are 300 pixels per inch on my 7D Mark II. anyone know how to change this

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

Peter — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 06:24:10 GMT

Does it matter for you? Why would you want to change it?

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

Peter — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 07:55:29 GMT

"If you’re only going to look at an image on a screen, its PPI doesn’t matter because the PPI of your monitor is already fixed. So next time someone tells you to upload images to a website at 72ppi because that is “web resolution,” you can tell them that they have simply added a ridiculous extra step.

Unless they are concerned with visitors taking the images from the website and then printing them, the PPI doesn’t matter. A 72ppi image and a 3,000ppi image will appear exactly the same on screen"
/ From 99designs.

With that said, change it in Camera Raw or Lightroom. If you want to change ppi in PS, Image>Image size.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:40:41 GMT

This setting is not changeable in the camera. You can change the image size in PS easily.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:57:47 GMT

I just thought you may not know how to do this upon import.

Are you opening them through Camera Raw? If so, there's a link at the bottom-center, just under the image preview, that you can use to set the opened image size, ppi, color space, and so forth.

You can change an image resolution, all you need to do is use Photoshop menu, Image, than Size, in the image size dialog un-check Resample set the DPI resolution you want and click OK. Not a single pixel will be changed all that will happen is the DPI setting will change to the one you choose and Photoshop will calculate and show the width and height for the new resolution.

You can make an action to do for you.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

TCampbell — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:37:25 GMT

PPI = "Pixels Per Inch". There are no pixels-per-inch in the camera... this is something that is only used when producing a physical print.

The camera sensor simply has some resolution. The 7D II is a 20.2 megapixel camera with a resolution of 5472 × 3648.

But lets use some easier numbers so you can visual this... suppose the camera resolution is 6000 pixels wide by 4000 pixels high. (BTW, they aren't really "pixels". Pixels have three color channels... red, green, & blue. The sensor only has a single color channel and uses a color filter array to produce color. Three channel color is derived mathemetically when the image is "de-mosaiced" by the RAW decoder. I digress.)

Anyway... the resolution simply is what it is. But let's suppose you want to print this. And you decide to set a PPI of 500. Since the "I" in PPI and DPI is "inches" then 6000 ÷ 500 = 12 (inches) and 4000 ÷ 500 = 8 (inches). So the output would produce an image which is 12" x 8".

Suppose you change the DPI or PPI to 300. Now it's 6000 ÷ 300 = 20 inches. 4000 ÷ 300 = 13.3 inches. So you'd get an output which is 20" by 13 1/3rd inches.

You can set the DPI in Photoshop at will... but changing it doesn't actually DO anything to the image. It would be like going into the meta-data and changing the date & time when the photo was shot... it wont actually change what you see on the screen because it's just meta-data. Normally when you print in Photoshop, you can define the output size there (you don't actually have to do all the math of figuring out what DPI to use.)

But for some reason... I still encounter people who seem to think it's really important to have that value set to some special number ... as if they just can't deal with the file if the value isn't set to that number.

Think of the DPI / PPI as a "coment field". Nothing meaningful happens when you change it.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 17:55:29 GMT

"But for some reason... ... as if they just can't deal with the file if the value isn't set to that number."

Kinda like 'crop factor' isn't it? Seems to hold on for some unknown reason that just confuses folks.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

TCampbell — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:51:44 GMT

No, crop-factor is a real thing. The appearance of an image and it's qualites change in a noticeable way when you use a different crop factor.

Specifically the angle of view changes (probably the most noticeable thing). But since photographers "compose" their shots, it causes the photographer to either change their subject distance or change their lens selection (really the focal length selection) when they use a different crop factor and that ends up changing other things such as the depth of field. When people take milky-way photos, the amount of time you can expose (without the imaging blurring due to Earth's movement) actually does change based on crop factor.

There are lots of reasons to be aware of your crop factor.

We've hashed this out before ... and since it's not really the topic of the OP's inquiry, it would be best to leave this discussion for another thread.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 21:12:57 GMT

"No, crop-factor is a real thing."

So is dpi and ppi but it doesn't stop people from being confused be either or both. Tim you may not like other people's opinion but it doesn't make them wrong. Truth of the matter you don't have to compare your lens to a 35mm equivalents and you don't need to figure ppi or dpi when you import your photos into PS.

Keep the Earth rotating, my friend.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

TCampbell — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 23:31:02 GMT

Ernie, please do not turn every thread into yet another argument. As I stated in the last reply... the topic isn't related to the OP's question. If you want to discuss it, it should be done in a different thread.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 14:16:15 GMT

"If you want to discuss it,..."

I don't, I simply made the connection of the two since both are non-existent issues. There are more!

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

CurtisEssen — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 23:04:56 GMT

This is my first post here.

This is an old thread but I couldn't help but see how this discussion could confuse some people. It would have me if I were new to photography.

What your native raw image out of your camera is labled as is pretty inconsequential. Images from my 5DSr are labled 28.96 x 19.307 at 300 ppi when opened in photo shop from my browser. If you open it from Lightroom it will be whatever you told Lightroom to open it as in preferences. PPI does matter when resizing an image, say in photo shop. Go to image size and just change the ppi to 10 (I know that is absurd) but don't change the dimensions, keep them at say 28.96 x 19.307. Your image will shrink on the screen but right click it in maganify mode and choose print size. The image will return to take up the same screen space as before but will be very pixelated so in that sense it is not just a metadata lable and it should be very closly paid attention to when resizing for a certain print size or cropping. At this point close your file without saving it.

I hope this is helpful. I am Curtis Essen and you can see some of my images at [Removed link per forum guidelines]

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 15:57:12 GMT

Perhaps you should re-read Tim Campbell's excellent reply. There is no DPI or PPI in the camera. DPI is a printer function.

".... There are no pixels-per-inch (or DPI) in the camera... this is something that is only used when producing a physical print.

The camera sensor simply has some resolution. ...

But lets use some easier numbers so you can visual this... suppose the camera resolution is 6000 pixels wide by 4000 pixels high. ...

... the resolution simply is what it is. But let's suppose you want to print this. And you decide to set a PPI of 500. Since the "I" in PPI and DPI is "inches" then 6000 ÷ 500 = 12 (inches) and 4000 ÷ 500 = 8 (inches). So the output would produce an image which is 12" x 8".

Suppose you change the DPI or PPI to 300. Now it's 6000 ÷ 300 = 20 inches. 4000 ÷ 300 = 13.3 inches. So you'd get an output which is 20" by 13 1/3rd inches.

You can set the DPI in Photoshop at will... but changing it doesn't actually DO anything to the image. ...

Think of the DPI / PPI as a "coment field". Nothing meaningful happens when you change it."

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

CurtisEssen — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 16:16:54 GMT

It is false to assume that the ppi does not affect the image quality either on screen or in the print. To say that ppi is just a comment field is very misleading. I just gave you a way to demonstrate that in my post. I do very large prints on a 44" Canon ipf8400 and have wallpaper prints floor to ceiling in our local hospital. Resolution and sharpness are very much affected by how you set your ppi when you resize an image.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 16:43:37 GMT

Right, you are talking prints. Printers and prints have DPI cameras don't. DPI is set in software like Photoshop.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

CurtisEssen — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 17:03:34 GMT

That is correct, but they affect each other. If your ppi is 300 but you set the dpi in your printer settings at 150 dpi you are going to have probably 4 pixels in each dot. If your print lab prints at 240 dpi it would make sense to set your ppi to 240. 1 pixel per dot. I know it gets more comlicated than that because pixels are mixed in a way to bring out the colors etc. If your photo lab feels they get the best results at a certain resolution why would you not believe them? You could send them a 300ppi image but if they print it at 240 dpi why send a larger file?

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

CurtisEssen — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 21:07:01 GMT

A 3000 ppi image is about 1700 times larger than a 72 ppi image. It would not make sense to upload an image that large to be viewed on a screen and most sites would probably reject an image that size as well e-mail servers. Also if you send a low resolution image to a monitor it is going to look like a low resolution image and in fact a high resolution monitor will just show how bad the image is better than a low resolution monitor. I read the articlle that this came from and it is not accurate information and is not logically thought out.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

Waddizzle — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 23:19:05 GMT

@CurtisEssen wrote:
That is correct, but they affect each other. If your ppi is 300 but you set the dpi in your printer settings at 150 dpi you are going to have probably 4 pixels in each dot. If your print lab prints at 240 dpi it would make sense to set your ppi to 240.

1 pixel per dot. I know it gets more comlicated than that because pixels are mixed in a way to bring out the colors etc. If your photo lab fe

els they get the best results at a certain resolution why would you not believe them? You could send them a 300ppi image but if they print it at 240 dpi why send a larger file?

The concept of DPI, dots per inch, is fairly easy for most people to grasp. It describes how a 6000 x 4000 file might be printed, to continue Tim’s analogy. What is confusing is the concept of PPI, pixels per inch, which describes how the file might be “printed” to a visual display.

Neither PPI and DPI are part of the EXIF metadata of a JPEG. The EXIF contains “X Resolution” and “Y Resolution” fields. DPI is a property associated primarily with hard copy printers. PPI is a property associated primarily with visual displays. But, both properties use the X and Y Resolution values, in conjunction with the overall X and Y dimension EXIF data to produce an output. The X and Y Dimensions are used to describe the overall “canvas size” of the image.

You cannot change the pixel resolution of a monitor. You can change the resolution of the signal sent to a monitor, but you cannot change the physical properties of it. This is where PPI comes into play. This is most readily apparent on larger, high resolution displays.

Images can be displayed at their hard copy print resolution, at the resolution of their canvas size, or at a given crop factor.. These could be described as “page size”, “actual size”, or “scaled to fit.”

On my laptops with typical 1080P HD resolution, if I ask DPP, or LR, to display our 24MP image at 100%. Typically, displaying at 100% means 1 pixel per dot. I might see a portion of the image that is significantly less than half of the entire image. If I switch to my 4K monitor, and display our 24MP image at 100%, then I might see significantly more than half of the entire image.

Re: Image size is 240 PPI instead of 300 PPI

ebiggs1 — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 03:27:46 GMT

"It is false to assume that the ppi does not affect the image quality either on screen or in the print"

This depends on whether you have resample set to on or off. PPI is the resolution of a digital image. PPI is used to resize images. DPI has nothing to do with anything displayed digitally!