300 DPI Kits, Elements & Papers....and Little Cell Phone Photos as Opposed to High Resolution Digital Camera Photos --- NOT A PROBLEM! It's All Good!

Please read the well written article about DPI by one of the staff members at the Paint Dot Net forum, Mr. David Atwell. "DPI and YOU - Understanding Resolution for Print and Web."

So, you opened up your graphic software to do a layout, set your resolution to 300 DPI, set your canvas size to 12" x 12", placed your chosen digital scrap paper on the canvas, added a layer for the photo you've been wanting to use, and when you put your photo on your digital paper and OH MY GOSH!! NOW IT LOOKS SOOOOO SMALL!

Well, that's because changing PDN's default resolution setting (dpi setting) from 96 to 300 will make your photos much smaller than they normally would be, allowing that photo to look even more sharp, clear, and detailed for professional printing, beyond what your home inkjet printer can do. That's the simple Simon, non-techie reason. Some home printers print awesome quality photos & images, which is why you don't always need to change your RESOLUTION (dpi) setting to 300 to make AWESOME scrapbooking 8" x 10" home print outs to frame or just to print your photo for your home made scrapbooking project, but, just know what to expect when you are working on a project requiring you to use a resolution/dpi setting of 300 to be submitted or uploaded to a professional printing company.

Most people have cell phones and a variety of different types of cell phones that offer different sizes (resolutions) of photos the cell phone camera takes, and with most phones, the setting of the size (resolution) of the photos can be changed. Many phones use photo apps that will make them even smaller. NO PROBLEM! (YAY) Just like your phone can have apps to do cool stuff to your phone pics, PDN can do cool things to your photos, too. That's not even counting how PDN is great for digital scrapbooking layouts. Just email cell phone pics to yourself, or transfer them any way you can to your desktop or laptop computer that has PDN installed on it.

Most digital scrap kits are made with a 300 dpi setting (super huge images) and the old scrap kits are usually made for 12" x 12" layouts, which won't always look so great if those super huge images are reduced for a 5" x 7" or 4" x 6" layout. Some will but not always. Now, remember this part; a great looking clear crisp photo size 8" x 10", OR WHATEVER SIZE IT IS, USING THE Paint.Net DEFAULT DPI SETTING OF 96, THAT SAME PHOTO WILL BE MUCH, MUCH SMALLER IN A 300 DPI SETTING. So, the higher the resolution of your photo (the bigger the size of your photo when you take a picture) means it will be a lot bigger to use with a 300 dpi setting.

Your created layouts can still be placed in photo books, but if your layout was created in the PDN default resolution setting (dpi setting) of 96 it will be a much smaller layout if a professional printing company required it to be a 300 dpi setting, such as Shutterfly, for a photo book page. But, that same layout or photo that looked good enough or big enough to work with using the PDN default resolution setting (dpi setting) of 96 will still look really good printed out on your home printer. Plus, places that offer photo books often have a huge selection of their own backgrounds, decorations, and layout templates allowing small photos and large photos to live together in harmony....but with Paint.Net, it's free. Photobooks are not. No shipping fees with PDN creating your layouts. No waiting a week or two for your delivery in the mail or worrying about porch pirates who steal packages.

Rarely do I make photo books, but when I do, I generally don't even use digital scrapbooking for my full page layouts because Shutterfly has a bazillion choices for each page layout. However, I did create one photobook using ONLY my full page layouts and it was beautiful, exactly the way I wanted each page to be, using the 300 dpi (resolution) setting for the entire process from start to finish. Costco and Wal-mart have jumped on that photobook train, too.

Most of the time, over the years, I have made my own 8" x 10" or 5" x 7" custom layouts using the PDN default resolution (dpi setting) of 96 and printed them at home with a regular no-big-deal home printer, and they are beautiful, or I could save my ink and drive over to a Costco, Wal-mart, Walgreens, or FedX to have them print it out in a normal printing process for a couple of dollars. I don't always want a photo book and all that goes with creating it one page at at a time, hour after hour. Oh, I have and I will, so don't get me wrong, but once in a while, not a lot. 1 to 3 times a year. Photo books are very cool if made at the right places and cool as a gift. A beautiful 8" x 10" or 5" x 7" framed beautiful layout of a photo printed out at home and placed in a beautiful frame can be just as cool and just as cool as a treasured gift. Don't kid yourself. They are and they are very much adored as gifts for any occasion or no occasion at all, just 'cuz. They can even be put in clear plastic frames with magnets and put inside of a school locker, on a file cabinet, or frig.

Do your own experiment. Use your cell phone photo and in PDN make a layout in a 5" x 7" or 8" x 10" size using the PDN default resolution (dpi) setting of 96. Do another the same size layout using that same photo but change the resolution (dpi) default setting from 96 to 300 (directions to do that are below). See the difference for yourself. If you can adjust your cell phone image size the cell phone camera takes, which some allow the largest size to be super huge, do that, using the highest setting your cell phone will allow. Do the same experiment and see the results for yourself. Also, keep in mind those super duper much larger cell phone photos will take up a lot more space on your cell phone if you are keeping them stored only on your phone and not in "a cloud" (an online data storage platform). If your cell phone setting is already using the highest resolution setting for taking cell phone pics, change it to a smaller/lower resolution setting and conduct the same experiment.

Below is the actual size of the photo. It's a small photo, so, it's a "low resolution" photo.

The larger photo is the same small photo enlarged but the resolution is too low to make the photo bigger. It's not clear and looks pixelated = "enlarged so far that the viewer sees the individual pixels that form the image."

If I try to make an actual photo that's too small into a larger photo or use that little photo in a photo book layout template with a larger frame, or upload it to a photo printing company's website hoping to have it printed onto an actual large canvas the photo won't work because it's too small The resolution is too low. I would need to take another photo using a higher resolution (larger photo size).

When printing my photos from layouts I put together at home, I don't even change my DPI to 300. I leave mine at 96 and they have always looked nice, I could set my DPI slightly higher and see the difference. 180 - 200 DPI for home printing, which would work just fine, too. DPI (dots per inch) settings are used on the software one does digital scrapbooking with. Paint Dot Net easily begins all projects with DPI options. By default it begins them with 96 DPI if you don't adjust it.

I have all of my originals saved in digital form, anyway, so who cares if what was printed on good photo paper might dim a little or fade over the next 100 years. Many will claim expensive acid free paper is what a treasured photo should be printed on, to last for eternity. I'd rather save money for something more fun and keep any photos or layouts backed up on a DVD or CD then print it out again on regular photo paper if I needed to.

I make beautiful layouts, print and frame them on the handy dandy home inkjet printer. It's not even a fancy expensive photo printing printer, just a no big deal printer and everything is beautiful. So, while others are insisting their way is the only way to properly do digital scrapbooking, it's not the only way and times are changing--again. With forever changing digital technology, photo book printing companies offering all a person needs, smaller cell phone pics in comparison to super duper high resolution photos (photos way, way bigger than a large computer monitor) taken by digital cameras, there really are no more set rules for the world of how digital scrapbooking must be done. Plus, many cell phones take awesome high resolution (really, really big) crispy clear photos.

If you do decide to have your layouts or photos used at a professional printing company to print them for you it is important for you to know what that company requires your photo or layout DPI settings to be. Bigger photos (bigger resolution) are often required in order to do professional printing jobs for photos being printed on an actual large canvas, in large photo books, and made into posters. These days, however, if the photo isn't big enough (resolution is too small) printing companies will show you a yellow warning triangle when you use or upload your image, telling you your photo or layout is not going to be big enough for the size of the template you are trying to use it in. They also offer customer service to assist you. If they don't, think twice about using them. Me? I'm flexible and I often can either print mine at a local place for a couple of dollars or just print it at home. (NOTE: DPI Settings using Paint.Net ---when you click on or double click on the icon to start Paint.Net on your computer and it opens up, by default a white canvas displays. When YOU want to do your own thing using Paint.Net or change the canvas size or change the DPI setting, you simply go to the upper left corner of PDN, click on "File". A drop down menu will appear then you select/click on "New". That's when your DPI setting will appear and you can change it to whatever you want. It will not say "DPI SETTING". It will say "Resolution" and the default setting will read "96"....you can change it to 300 if you want, as in 300 dpi.)

When you have an 8" x 10" printed at home on your color printer, keep in mind how EASY it is to find a photo frame 8" x 10", "5" x 7", 4" x 6", or 3.5" x 5" at your corner drug store, a thrift shop, or some location close to where you live to find a nice affordable photo frame. No shipping charges, no waiting for it to arrive in the mail, no worrying if the glass in the frame cracks or breaks before it arrives at your door. No surprises.

There are many websites that offer an explanation of "DPI" and "resolution" info but, for many, it can sound too technical and somewhat blur over your eyes. I tried to make this a little easier to understand with less techie talk.

Below are links for further solutions and ideas. Please know, while these articles might seem like they are becoming out-dated they still offer useful information to combine technology and social media of today.