High-resolution images can play a truly vital role in design, publishing, and even fine art exhibitions. But while plenty of people may think they know what the term means, it’s easy to understate the importance of fully understanding image resolution.
Learn about high quality images, why they’re important and how they are measured - as well as how to apply that knowledge in a practical setting.
High resolution is a broad term referring to something that showcases a large amount of detail. It can apply to images and photos, as well as audio and video – and is primarily concerned with the overall quality of something.
While the metric may be different in visual media than it is in audio, the concept is very much the same.
High resolution images are pictures or photos where the media has higher concentrations of pixels or dots, resulting in better quality and clarity of the image – as it contains more detail. By contrast, images with lower resolutions tend to have fewer pixels or dots and thus less detail.
When comparing high and low resolutions, there are two characteristics to consider:
While high quality may be ideal for something like artwork, the size of your image is going to depend on your project and goals. For example, if you’re making a life-sized poster you probably don’t want a low-resolution image, but for a sticker set you may be able to reduce the file size.
When wishing to do this, lossy compression and lossless compression are the two main methods you can use.
There are two ways to measure image resolution:
Measuring the resolution by file size in MB can also work—the more pixels and higher the resolution the larger the file size typically is.
Assuming the image is a JPEG file, a 300 PPI image would probably be around 3.5 megabytes (MB) in size. Conversely a JPEG of a low-resolution image at 72 PPI may be roughly 500 kilobytes (KB).
While this is not an absolute science, it can give you a general idea of what you’re dealing with at a glance.
The largest resolution possible at the time of writing is 3,200 megapixels—a number so high it probably doesn’t mean much to most people, and you certainly won’t see anything of that quality on a billboard anytime soon!
High resolution photographs are ideal when you need to deliver crisp and clear content—the degree to what you need depends on your project and goal, but here are some examples:
If you’re creating a life-size poster, you want to ensure you’re working at a high-quality PPI or DPI – since larger images are going to require more details to avoid looking blurry. That said, if it is going to be viewed from a distance, intermediate resolution values can sometimes strike the right balance.
Depending on the type of artwork, a high resolution may better convey the subtleties of what you’ve created. It may be worth considering what the artwork will be used for and how it will be presented as well—for example will your fine art photography work be on display at showcases or exhibitions? Or will it go into a quality online portfolio?
If you’re producing landscapes or images of nature you want to catch all the details that bring those scenes to life. High-res photos can bring out the wonder and professionalism in what you capture.
When creating work for print, a high resolution is essential to ensure quality imagery. Images that go into print are usually a minimum of 300 DPI.
There are a few easy checks you can perform to determine if an image is high resolution—the first one isn’t even too technical.
High quality images should be apparent from their quality, such as the visual clarity and lack of blurriness.
However, if you want to determine the detail of an image properly, then checking its DPI or PPI is the most exact method.
To do this in Photoshop open the image and then:
Alternatively, you can check the file size by right-clicking and selecting properties on an image.
There are a few ways to ensure you get a high-quality photograph:
Ensuring you have a high-quality camera is important (an old phone camera probably isn’t going to cut it). There are a few things worth looking out for when shopping around for a new piece of tech:
There are a few optimisation tips that could help you get the most out of your camera:
Just because you’re not packing the latest kit, doesn’t mean high-res photos are out of reach.
By using an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop to boost the resolution, you can edit your photos so that they look better quality. To start:
For more information on increasing image resolution with Adobe Photoshop, read our useful user guide.
Bring out the best in your high-resolution images with Adobe’s image-editing suite of software. Including:
A high-resolution JPEG is an image that is typically 300 DPI (dots per inch) or higher. While its file size may be larger, it can be ideal for those wanting to save a photograph or art piece and retain detail and quality. However, if it needs to be compressed for online use, it will likely lose some of this quality.
Hi res photos are generally considered to be anything that has a DPI/PPI of 300 or higher. While this isn’t an exact science, 300 DPI is generally used in print for quality images.
This can vary depending on your file format, but in general anything over 3.5 megabytes (MB) would be classed as a high-resolution image.
Want to learn more about bringing the most out of your images? Here are some useful guides: