When you need this conversion
Most people land here with a pixel size from a design tool and a physical size they have to hit: a poster at a print shop, a label template, an image for a printed brochure, or a CSS layout measured against paper. Figma, Photoshop and CSS all speak in pixels. Printers, paper and rulers speak in centimeters. The DPI setting is the bridge between them.
Choosing the right DPI
- 96 DPI is the CSS reference pixel. Use it for web layouts, browser print styles and anything measured in CSS
px. - 72 DPI is the old Mac and PostScript convention. Some PDF and presentation tools still assume it.
- 150 DPI is fine for large posters viewed from a distance and for draft prints.
- 300 DPI is the standard for photos, brochures, business cards and most commercial print.
If you are preparing artwork for print, work backwards: decide the printed size in centimeters, then use the centimeters to pixels converter at 300 DPI to find the pixel dimensions you need.
Common mistakes
Changing the DPI field and expecting the image to get sharper. Changing DPI in an image editor without resampling only changes the printed size; the pixel count, and so the detail, stays the same.
Using 72 DPI for a print job. A 1200 px image is 42.3 cm wide at 72 DPI but only 10.16 cm at 300 DPI. If a print shop asks for 300 DPI, measure at 300.
Rounding too early. Rounding 0.0264583 to 0.026 looks harmless, but it puts a 1920 px width off by almost a centimeter (49.92 cm instead of 50.8 cm). This converter keeps full decimal precision until the final display.