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I am making a book with some of my photography. I have not been blessed with the best camera in the world so my images range between 1100px squared to 2000px squared. The print size per image will be approximately 7 inches (17cm). Now for my 1100px images, I will need a DPI of 150 max, however for my 2000px images I could push it to 285DPI but would probably just settle with 250DPI.

Is it possible to set the DPI per image or rather per page as each page will have one image on it? For example: page one 150DPI, page 2 200DPI etc.

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Indesign reads the PPI of the placed image and does not alter it anywhere. Place your images at the desired PPI.You can not change an image PPI from within Indesign.

Although, mixing PPI this way is a bit unnecessary. I do not understand why you would want some images to appear better than others. More PPI simply means better image quality.

For commercial printing a minimum PPI is 300. For many home inkjets, anything above 150ppi is overkill and unwarranted.

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  • In certain cases yet but say if I print my book and 60% of my images are 2000px squared and the other 40% are lower, as I said one or two are as low as 1100px squared, then 60% of my pictures will look great and benefit from the correct PPI. However, the other 40% will be scaled up to fit the space therefore reducing the quality am I right. 1100px/7inches is 157 or 150ppi so this would mean each pixel would be doubled in size at 300ppi am I right? this would reduce the quality of the smaller images yes? Therefore I would need to print the document at the minimum ppi, i think.
    – gcoulby
    Mar 11, 2013 at 14:39
  • Why would you not simply set the book up at 60% size? Why the reduction when printing? For optimum results, it's generally best to set any book up at 100% size and not scale upon output. This may require 2 setups to meet size requirements.
    – Scott
    Mar 11, 2013 at 14:48
  • Sorry I didn't make myself clear 60% of my images are 2000px x 2000px and others are smaller file sizes I want the book to be 200mm by 200mm and each image to be printed in a 170mm x 170mm square on each page. However, some images are large pixel sizes and others are smaller. My question stands that I would like pictures of 1100px to be 7 inches and 150ppi and pictures that are 2000px to be 7 inches at 300ppi. A photography book would not look very good with 3 inch photos in.
    – gcoulby
    Mar 11, 2013 at 15:00
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    Oh, I see. You are essentially asking how to use indesign to resize your images. You should not resize images in Indesign. You should be resizing images in Photoshop or some other raster editing application. Then, import them at 100% into Indesign. If you have larger images, reduce their size in Photoshop. They will reflect whatever ppi the image has set. Resizing images in Indesign is a recipe for lower quality images. Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture, et. al. have MUCH better interpolation algorithms than Indesign ever will.
    – Scott
    Mar 11, 2013 at 15:04
  • AHHHHHHHHH! OK Now I understand what I mean. I didn't really know what I was asking until I tried this. Thank you for your help you have just put it into perspective I imaging converting from rgb to CMYK would be best in photoshop too I always find it strange how these programs are all made by the same people yet function in completely different ways.
    – gcoulby
    Mar 11, 2013 at 17:09

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