Pdf to jpg, what resolution?

Question

i am adding a picture to a brochure which is a pdf, i put it in photoshop and it wants to know what resolution to put it as. it is preset at 72 pixels per inch. should i keep it at that? what about the picture, should i change that to 72 or keep it at 300.

Answer 1

keep at 300

Answer 2

I disagree with the previous answer. If the brochure is intended to be only viewed on the computer, then the photo need be no more DPI than 72, especially since that is the resolution the brochure is pre set to. Having the photo at 300 is totally useless. 300 DPI is printing resolution. Either keep the brochure and photo at 72, or change them both to 300. Two different resolutions makes no sense and accomplishes nothing.

steve

Answer 3

Assuming your brochure is going to be printed, use 300 dpi. Use 72 dpi  for graphics intended exclusively for online viewing. 72 dpi graphics will look pretty rough when printed.

Answer 4

72 is Screen rez

150 is Draft Print rez

300+ is Standard Print rez

Btw, jpg pixelation can look pretty crappy with the 72/300 difference. Best to use a lossless format

EDIT: Lossless is any format that doesn't degrade to save storage. PNG & TIFF are examples of lossless formats. (There are others.) GIF is as well, but limited to 256 colors. Of those TIFF is commonly associated with print, but I prefer PNG because of the storage savings.

Either way the PDF will likely change the format inline within the PDF file itself. From that there should be options for lossless vs storage savings. (Normally set at around 80-90% - so it can end up slightly lossy anyways.)

For example, if you've got a 72x72 pic and it's jpg and you put it in a PDF for print (150+ dpi), the PDF will expand the picture to match the rest of the doc and then try to compress it again. That is why 72x looks terrible when expanded. Add to that the "artifacts" from jpg compression, and it can get very bad.

B&W is a bit more forgiving than color, but the same rules apply.