About Image Quality

We hope that this atricle will help you to understand the quality of the image and what is the right personalized puzzle for your image.

What is Image Resolution?

The term "resolution" refers to the amount of information a digital or printed image file contains, typically measured in pixels. Generally speaking, the higher an image's resolution, the more detailed and crisp it will appear on a printed page or a Web site — though some extremely high-resolution images may contain more pixels than the human eye can see.

What are Pixels and Megapixels?

A pixel is a tiny block of color and is a digital image's most basic building block. A digital image — be it a photograph or another type of graphic — is composed of thousands or millions of individual pixels. The more pixels an image contains, the greater its detail. One million pixels equal one megapixel; therefore, a 3.1-megapixel digital camera can take photographs that contain more than 3 million pixels.

Most graphics-editing applications list an image's resolution using pixel dimensions, with the horizontal measurement coming first. For instance, an image with dimensions listed at "2592x1944" would contain 2,592 horizontal pixels and 1,944 vertical pixels. Multiplying these two numbers gives you 5,038,848 pixels, or approximately 5 megapixels of resolution.

Dpi and Pixels

DPI: A measure of the resolution of a printer is called DPI or dots per inch. It properly refers to the dots of ink or toner used by an image setter, laser printer, or other printing device to print your text and graphics. In general, the more dots, the better and sharper the image. DPI is printer resolution. DPI is not image resolution although frequently used that way.

Pixels: Every digital image is a computer file that contains graphical information instead of text or a program. Pixels are the basic building blocks of all digital images. Pixels are small adjoining squares in a matrix across the length and width of your digital image. They are so small that you don't see the actual pixels when the image is on your computer monitor. Pixels are monochromatic. Each pixel is a single solid color that is blended from some combination of the 3 primary colors of Red, Green, and Blue. So, every pixel has a RED component, a GREEN component and and BLUE component. The physical dimensions of a digital image, are measured in pixels and commonly called pixel or image resolution. Pixels are scalable to different physical sizes on your computer monitor or on a photo print. However, all of the pixels in any particular digital image are the same size.

What should I consider if I'm printing personalized puzzle?

When printing images on puzzles, important, is knowing how large you can print an image while still retaining an acceptable level of quality and detail.

The total amount of pixels that an image contains dictates the maximum size in inches it can be printed without a noticeable loss in quality. We recommend that, in order to achieve a high-quality print, an image should be saved at a minimum of 150 DPI.

For instance, you'd like to print a 3.1-megapixel image that measures 2,048 horizontal pixels by 1,536 vertical pixels at 300 DPI. An easy formula to help you find out the maximum size image you can print (in inches) at 300 DPI is to simply divide each of the pixel dimensions by 300. In this case, the 3.1-megapixel image can be printed at a maximum size of 6.8 inches horizontally and 5.1 inches vertically while still retaining photo realistic quality. Some image editing applications, example photoshop, will do the math for you; once you set the DPI, the program will automatically give you the maximum dimensions at which it can be printed.