Optimal DPI Setting in Olympus OMD EM5 mii? [duplicate]

Question

This question already has an answer here:

• Is there any practical difference between saving at 300ppi or 72ppi? 5 answers
• Does the dpi number reported by camera in JPG have any meaning? 6 answers

I had been using the default 350 dpi, but the resulting files are too small to sell to most stock photography sites online. For a standard print at 300dpi, they are great. A bit low for my metal art, which usually prints at 600 dpi, and the industrial provider I use for canvas prints requests 1600 dpi (no typo). My question is since I can change this setting in the camera itself, so that I don't have to stitch a panorama for every shot I want to list on a stock site, what should I change this to to get the most out of my camera? It's supposed to be capable of standard shots of over 17megapixels, but I can't figure out how to do that.

Thank you!

Answer 1

I had been using the default 350 dpi, but the resulting files are too small to sell to most stock photography sites online.

The ppi settings has nothing to do with the real photo size. You can have 72 ppi or 300. If you have enough Megapixels you are fine.

Note that the unit is ppi, pixels per inch, not dpi (dots per inch). dpi is a printer resolution unit, that defines how small the dot of ink is, not how many pixels you have per inch in the printed photo.

For a standard print at 300dpi, they are great. A bit low for my metal art, which usually prints at 600 dpi, and the industrial provider I use for canvas prints requests 1600 dpi (no typo).

This is an example on how you are confusing the units. You print in a printer that has 600 or 1600 dots of ink each inch. But you need to send the information on the size of your photo in pixels per inch.

In a standard offset sheeted print (a magazine for example) you use laser generated dots on a plate at 2400 dpi, and you use a 300 ppi file.

Regarding your question... you do not need to do anithing.