Small Business Design Resources

Images on the web vs. Images printed explained

There’s a huge difference when preparing images for web use and preparing images for printing purposes. The major difference is in color type and resolution.

How is CMYK different from RGB
Images online use color combination known as RGB (Red, Green, Blue) and images that are printed use color combination know as CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). What this basically means is that the colors of an image/graphic that you see on your screen will NOT be exactly the same as when you print that image/graphic. Images on the monitor will appear lighter then the once that are printed. This is due to the monitor being lit from the back to light up your screen. The colors that are seen on screen will vary from one monitor to the other because each individual sets their monitor to their liking.

Image resolution, 72dpi vs. 300dpi
Resolution for images online is recommended to be no more than 72dpi (dots per inch) vs. resolution for images that are printed is recommended to be at least 300dpi. As you can see there’s a big difference between 72 and 300. Basically, the dpi will determine how clear the image will look and this is most concerned for printed images. Web images need to be on the low scale because the resolution affects the loading time. Online users don’t have patience for an image to load. The smaller the image, the faster the website/blog/email will load.

Preparing your images for online use
Best practice is to prepare the image the size that you need it to be before you upload it online. Uploading a huge image to your website and then scaling it, will NOT make the physical image smaller, it will only appear smaller, thus still slow down the loading time. Take look at this short video on how to make your image smaller using FotoFlexer.com

Once you’ve made your images physically smaller, you can go ahead and use them online.

Preparing your images for printing
It’s best to have a professional prepare your images for printing. There are a lot of things to consider when getting your images ready for print.