DPI questions re: artwork

[snowbunny00774]

So I came up with a logo for a t-shirt I want made. the t-shirt place said ideally it could be better if the dpi was higher. I think it's less than a hundred right now and he'd like it to be at least 300 and something. I barely have a clue what he's talking about as I don't normally mess with this stuff.

Is it even possible to increase the DPI? Any ideas anyone?

 

[Calvin N. Hobbes]

I am assuming your logo is a bitmap image and not a vector based file.

For any type of bitmap images you will always get better printing results when you start off a high DPI.

You can technically easily change the DPI from 72 to 300 but it doesn't mean that the quality would improve. Thats because you will be stretching out what little pixels you had to begin with to a larger size. This will result in your image looking very pixelated when it's outputted.

It all depends on your design too.. sometimes you can get away with making the change if you are using smart objects.

As a rule of thumb, always design at a high resolution. You can always re-size an image to a smaller size without compromising the quality.

 

[snowbunny00774]

Thanks for the feedback. I found Irfanview, which was able to make the change.

When I made the design I wasn't thinking of DPI and the program I used didn't allow for being saved as X DPI.

I changed it to 300 or something and the Tshirt guy was able to use it. Hopefully when I pick them up tmw they will be alright.

I have learned my lesson in regards to starting off at a high res though.