# Low Res CD



## Andrew Vlcek (May 27, 2011)

For those of you who sell low res CDs to clients, what dpi and size do you scale the photos down to?  Im trying to find a good size that is ok to use on facebook or online albums, but small enough that it will not print great.


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## KmH (May 28, 2011)

First off, PPI would be meaningless. You could make the PPI = 1 if you want. It won't have any effect on how the photo looks on the CD.

PPI has no meaning until an image will be printed, and the PPI could be re-set by the client from whatever you value you used. 

All that matters is the pixel dimensions and the file size. For online use I limit pixel dimension to 600 px on the long side.

Most commercial clients don't need more than 400 px on the long side for online use.


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## Andrew Vlcek (May 28, 2011)

Maybe we are talking about 2 different things. Is ppi and dpi the same thing? Ppi=pixels per inch and dpi=dots per inch. If I were to change the dpi from 300 to 72, the physical print size does not change, however it will shrink the photo if viewing on a computer screen. It will become much smaller at 72dpi.


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## orljustin (May 29, 2011)

No it won't.  The only that that matters is the w x h pixel dimensions.  dpi is only used when printing.


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## KmH (May 29, 2011)

A short discussion of how DPI and PPI differ. DPI and PPI Explained &#8211; Andrew Dacey Photography

The 2 terms are not interchangeable.

More DPI - PPI facts. http://www.unleash.com/knpepper/dpi/


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## Andrew Vlcek (May 30, 2011)

The size does in fact change on my screen. For example, let's say an image of 400 pixels wide with a dpi of 100 and a screen res of 100. You change the dpi to 200 and the image will now be displayed at half the size, only 200 pixels wide. However, the print size doesn't change. Open an image in photoshop and try it. just change the dpi and you'll see your image displayed smaller. You'll also see as soon as you change the dpi, the pixel dementions change automatically.


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## Andrew Vlcek (May 30, 2011)

Oops sorry, typo. Changing from 100 dpi to 200 doubles the size on the screen, not half.


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## Robin Usagani (May 30, 2011)

Go to facebook, right click on someone image, see the pixel x pixel size.  Make it that size.


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