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[handrawn]

the mistake is to think of dpi as being a unit of size - it is not, it is a unit of density

the size of an image is how many pixels it is hight and width.

dpi defines how those pixels are spread out on the device, specifically a printer; and as you say.. monitors are different because you cannot change the distance between pixels on the fly, for a given screen resolution that spacing is fixed

[Boy]

Nice definition of the concept, Handrawn.

[handrawn]

I was confused as anyone when I first started, but looking at it this way certainly helped me

you can think of dpi as stretching or compressing the image - so whilst dpi defines how much space it currently occupies, that is not the same as it's 'rest state' [real size]

[Boy]

you can think of dpi as stretching or compressing the image - so whilst dpi defines how much space it currently occupies, that is not the same as it's 'rest state' [real size]

But now I'm confused again!

[hseiken]

I made this graphic hopefully giving a quickhand reference to what I was trying to say. I hope this helps? Keep in mind, all the 'displays' and 'papers' have not scaled the image, that's the important part. Remember, once you start scaling, there's other things to consider!

[handrawn]

not sure what you are saying with that graphic ?

dpi is not a measure of size - it is a ratio that determines the printed size relative to the actual size of the digital image - or determines the actual size of the digital image when scanned, relative to it's physical size in the real world

in xara for example, the actual digital size of an image is the size reported in the bitmap gallery - what you see in the workspace depends on what dpi ratio you are working at for a given image

[RKissane]

What Hseiken is saying is exactly how I understand DPI and printing.

When you use Xara and change the DPI it does not work the way other graphics programs work. If I take an image and change the size in Xara to display at 300 DPI, Xara makes the image bigger not smaller like other graphics programs will. I believe Gary mentioned once that with Xara you have think in pixels not DPI to get the results you want.

Ray