Cards, flyers, brochures, menus
300dpi
Under a metre: held or read close up, A3 and smaller
Free tool · nothing leaves your browser · Updated · Report a problem
Is my image sharp enough to print?
This tool tells you the real dpi of an image at the size it will be printed, in your browser — your file never leaves your computer. Drop in the image, enter the size, and get a straight answer about whether it will hold up.
1. Files
Drop one or more PDFs or images — a multi-page PDF becomes one entry per page. Nothing here is uploaded; everything is processed on your device and forgotten when you leave this page.
2. Job settings
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Whole source fits inside the box — pads the remainder rather than cropping.
Repeats the artwork's own edge pixels outward — best for a flat-colour or simple background.
Measured from the trim line, the way Illustrator measures it — so with a bleed set the marks start just inside it, which is fine: everything outside the cut line goes in the offcut either way. The sheet grows to fit whatever you turn on, and the marks are drawn as PDF vector, not pixels.
Scan/crop, deliberately conservative — won't eat into real artwork.
3. Run
Automated · not a substitute for a person
If what comes out is not right, send it to us
These tools run on their own in your browser, and automatic is not the same as correct. A trace can miss a curve or turn a smooth arc into short straight segments. A cut contour can clip a tight corner. Bleed can be added to a file that was never built to carry it, and a check can pass artwork that still has something wrong with it only a person would notice. Treat what comes out as a starting point, not a proof.
If you are not happy with the result, send it to us and we will set the artwork up properly — free when you print the job with us. No setup fee, nothing to pay for the time. We would far rather spend twenty minutes on a file than have you print something you are not pleased with, and you still see a proof before anything runs. If you are printing it somewhere else, we will still set it up — that is artwork setup, at a fixed price from $29.
300dpi or 150? Work it out from the viewing distance
For banners, posters and signs
The figures are about twice what the eye can separate at each distance, so there is room for fine detail and for the person who walks up close. The default above is an 850 × 2000mm pull-up banner read from two metres.
Why pixel dimensions on their own mean nothing
An image is not "300dpi" or "72dpi" on its own. Dots per inch only exists once you decide how big it is going to be printed — the same 1000-pixel-wide file is beautifully sharp on a business card and unusably soft on an A1 poster.
The arithmetic is simple. Divide the pixel width by the printed width, converting millimetres to inches on the way, because that is literally what dots-per-inch means:
1063 pixels ÷ (90mm ÷ 25.4) = 300dpi
Everything else on this site is in millimetres, as it should be. DPI is the one exception, and it stays — it is the term every printer in Australia uses, and dots-per-centimetre would be technically tidier and completely unusable in a conversation with a press.
That is why a file can be rejected as "low resolution" even though it looked perfect on screen. A screen shows roughly 100 pixels per inch; a press lays down 300. Your monitor is flattering the file by a factor of three.
What each product actually needs
300dpi is the standard for anything held in the hand or read close up. It is emphatically not the standard for everything — a billboard printed at 300dpi would be an enormous file for no visible gain, because nobody stands 300mm from a billboard.
Posters, pull-up and vinyl banners
150dpi
1 to 3 metres: A2 to A0 and larger
Corflute, A-frames
120dpi
3 to 5 metres
Shopfront and vehicle signage
100dpi
5 metres and beyond
Upscaling does not add detail. Enlarging a small image in Photoshop produces a bigger file with the same information in it, spread more thinly. The dpi number goes up and the print does not improve. If a file is genuinely too small, the fix is a larger original — or a design that uses it smaller.
What to do if your file fails
- Find the original. The version in a Word document or pulled off a website has usually been compressed twice already.
- Ask for a vector. Logos should be AI, EPS, SVG or PDF. Vectors have no resolution at all and print sharp at any size — see logo to vector if all you have is a PNG.
- Use it smaller. An image that fails at 200mm wide often passes at 120mm.
- Reconsider the product. A photo too soft for a brochure may be perfectly fine on a banner.
Next
Made it with AI?
Resolution is only one of four things that go wrong. What the others are, and what each fix costs.
The full guide
Resolution, dpi and viewing distance explained properly.
Add bleed & trim marks
Resolution is right — now check the file has bleed.
Print your posters
A2 to A0 on satin or gloss, proofed before printing.
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