Esri Mapping Center - Ask a Cartographer

DPI when inserting picture in a layout

February 10 2011 | 2 comments
Categories: Map Elements

A colleague of mine was modifying an image in Photoshop. He set its resolution at 300 dpi and the image was 2in wide.

When he inserted it in his layout, the image was about 6 in wide, so it would have been about 100 dpi.

Is 100 dpi the standard resolution when inserting a picture in an ArcMap layout?

If so, when resizing the picture to 2", is ArcMap resampling the picture?

We'd like to know the best setting to "create" our picture to insert them in Arc...

Thanks!

Mapping Center Answer:

ArcMap stores the bitmap at the same resolution as the original file. When drawing the bitmap to the window, the resolution of the video driver is used. This is often 96dpi. When you resize the bitmap, it preserves the original resolution and stretches the bitmap to fit the current device.

Thanks! posted by Francois Turcotte-Goulet on Feb 14 2011 12:18PM

That's what we wanted to know. My driver must be at 96 dpi. My calculation to arrive at a result of 100 dpi was only an approximation (don't know why ESRI would have chosen a resolution of 100 either ;) )

Thanks!

Glad to help! posted by Aileen Buckley on Feb 14 2011 12:22PM

Glad we got you the information you needed!

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