Digitally Printed Graphics

Determining the Proper Resolution

Here is a 4'x10' sign, printed, from a distance (there's a quarter to the left of it for reference):

From a distance this doesn't look bad at all. You can't see any pixelation in the image.

But get in too close and it is no longer acceptable:

The trick is ... this is the same resolution image. The only difference is how far away you are when viewing it. The farther you get from it, the smaller it looks. It all boils down to your field of vision, but let's not worry about all that math for now.

As a general rule of thumb, if you have a sign going outdoors then you need only about 70dpi (dpi is how many pixels for every inch of height or width). For instance, if your sign is 4'x10' then your image needs to be 3360 pixels tall (48" x 70) and 8400 pixels long (120" x 70).

FYI, the human eye can see a max of 2190dip and that's if the the graphic is 4" from your nose!

If the sign is going indoors it should be at LEAST 75dpi, but going up to 90 or even 150 dpi is best. Any more than that is just wasted as not even sign companies could notice the difference.

The farther your viewers are, the lower the resolution needs to be. As an example, on a typical digital (LED) billboard the image is less than 2dpi, but it still looks good because you are viewing it from hundreds of yards away! Specifically, at 154' a billboard looks just like a photo.

Be sure to ask your Signs Manufacturing Sales Representative to help you determine the needed resolution for your sign. We've been doing this for over 40 years and we can help make sure it looks good. In the meantime, this chart will help. It shows what the dpi needs to be in order to look good (not pixelated) at different viewing distances.