Print specs · 4 min read

Image resolution for print, and why 300 dpi matters

A screen shows roughly 100 dots per inch and is lit from behind, which hides a lot. Paper shows about 300 and reflects light instead. An image that looks crisp in your camera roll can land on card stock looking soft, and there is no fixing it after the fact.

The only sum you need

Divide the pixel width of your image by 300. That is how many inches it can print before it starts to break down.

A 1050 px wide photo prints 3.5″ wide, which covers a card. A 350 px logo saved off a website prints about 1.17″. Stretch that across the full card and you are asking each original pixel to cover three, which reads as blur and soft edges.

For a design that bleeds off all four edges, the target is 1088 × 638 px. That is the full canvas at 300 dpi.

Logos are the usual casualty

Most people have their logo as a small PNG that someone sent them years ago. It is fine on a website and too small for print. If you can get hold of the original vector — an SVG, EPS, PDF or AI file — use that instead. Vector artwork has no resolution at all; it redraws itself at whatever size you print, so it is sharp at any scale.

If the vector is genuinely gone, the next best thing is to place the logo small and let it be small. A crisp half-inch logo looks deliberate. A blurry two-inch one looks careless.

What upscaling can and cannot do

Enlarging an image does not add detail that was never captured; it only invents pixels between the ones you had. Modern upscalers guess well on photographs of faces and landscapes and badly on type, line art and logos, which is exactly the material that ends up on a business card.

Common questions

What resolution should a business card be?

300 dpi at the finished size. For a full-bleed 3.5 by 2 inch card that means an image around 1088 by 638 pixels.

Can I use a logo from my website on a printed card?

Usually not at full size. Web logos are typically a few hundred pixels wide, which prints just over an inch before it goes soft. Use the original vector file if you can.