Photographs, illustrations or other visual materials can really support or enhance your message, whether used online or in print. For guidance on finding suitable images, commissioning a photoshoot and managing consent for photography, visit our photography webpages

Using photographs in print publications

Image size

When using photographs in print materials, all visual material has to be high enough resolution to print. What you see on screen does not translate to the printed form. When most people take digital photos the camera's setting is 72 dpi (dots per inch). For successful print, the pictures must be at a minimum of 300 dpi. As a rough guide, if your file size is in KB (kilobytes) rather than MB (megabytes) it will not be high enough quality.

All images on the College Asset Library are available to download as a high resolution JPEG file.

Increasing image resolution

If your original image is under 300dpi then resizing it to 300dpi simply expands the pixels, it does not improve the quality, as it is not possible to add more information to the original picture. In some cases, it can actually degrade the quality.

If your original file is very small and low resolution then you may have to accept that it is simply unusable for print.

You can get advice from your designer, who will tell you if images are suitable for print. Alternatively, email Style Guide for advice.

Using photographs on the Imperial website

Step-by-step guidance on adding images to your content on T4 is available in the College's web guide.