CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Consult your display manual and determine the pixel resolution of your screen. Is it at or around 1920x1080-pixels? If you want to fill your screen (whether laptop, desktop or high-def TV), all you need is a file that matches (or nearly) matches to the pixel resolution of the target display. You might have a larger TV, such as a Visio HDTV at 3840-pixel wide. To fill that screen, create images that are 3840-pixels wide.

BebuLamar

The 72DPI was never based on printer resolution. It was based on monitor resolution in the 80's or so. Today monitor resolution is higher but a typical 1080p monitor isn't that much higher.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Thanks.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

Actually originally it was 72DPI with the first inkjet replacing the dot matrix printers (9pins, 24pins), this is why we are still stuck with it. It quickly went to 150/300 DPI.

Monitors were in dot/pich/per inch which led to further confusion. That was in reference to the RGB grid used to produce color. This produced rays of light that were focused on a phosphorous (?) layer inside the screen. The DPI we refer to now is completely different.

Apple introduced WYSIWYG using the 144 DPI for both printers and screen. (it was monochrome at the time)

So....
Monitor resolution: Dot Pitch per Inch (DPI)
Display resolution: Dot Per Inch (DPI)
(monitors and display are also mostly 'sized' by the diagonal length)
Printer resolution: Dot Per Inch (DPI)
Image resolution (reported DPI) is irrelevant. Note that if this number is no available some software will crash or not display an image. UHH is a web site that suffers from this. A recent thread exposed this issue (JPG w/o DPI). A JPG was posted as a link, no thumbnail created, the op wondered why.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Modern monitors, not old school CRTs, express their resolution in pixels just like digital camera sensors. They are measured by X-pixels long by Y-pixels high. They do not have a "dots per inch". Yes, they have a diagonal display size. But, that's how physically big the equipment, just like a '35mm' frame of film. The monitor then has a pixel pitch, again just like a digital sensor, expressing how big is each pixel.

More important for the digital display of digital images: pixels map to pixels, not inches to inches. So, there is no 'pixel per inch' aspect of a digital display. There's either more (or less) one-to-one pixels of the image as mapped to the screen display. An image at 1920x1080-pixels maps exactly a 1920x1080px monitor, whether that screen is a 6-inch phone, or a 24-inch monitor, or an 17-inch laptop.

You can see these technical details in the technical specs of any equipment. Take the Dell 23" vs 24" vs 27" UltraSharp monitors. Both the 23 and 24-inch models have 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution. One doesn't have more pixels per inch (ppi). Rather, one has larger pixels, where the 23" is Pixel Pitch - 0.265 mm and the 24" is 0.27 mm. The Dell 27" model has the same 16:9 aspect ratio, but a resolution of 2560X1440px and a pixel pitch of 0.233 mm (higher pixel resolution using physically smaller pixels). The same 1920x1080px image will have a slight border on the 27" display. Increase the image file resolution to 2560X1440px (still less than the 24MP 6000x4000 camera sensor), and the image fills the 27-inch display and is visually exactly the same as the 23- and 24-inch monitors.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Not sure what you are asking. Is your image 72 ppi, meaning that it is postcard sized, which implies that the dimensions in pixels is 4x72 by 6x72 - or 288p x 432 p?

If this is the case, there is no magic software that can do what you want it to do. All the AI, interpolation, etc in the world is not going to add fine detail to your image(s) - but those solutions will add pixels. However the bad news is that the added pixels are filled in using a predictive algorithm that basically looks left-right-up-down and makes an educated guess as to what "should" be there - which in many cases ends up not looking very nice.

For an 8x12 image to look good at normal viewing distances - usually around 18" - the image needs to have 2400x3600 - or 300 ppi - to look crisp. No software will take a 288x432 image and enlarge it to 2400x3600 without major quality loss.

NOt sure what you mean by "distorted" when you resize the image to 150 ppi.

a 27" display that shows HD resolution is only 1920x1080px - so even a low res image will look ok when you fill the screen with it. If you have a 4K display, that would be 3840 × 2160px - and your low res images will definitely not look good at all.

Now to really mess with your mind - when you go to the local Multiplex theater and you watch a movie in Sony 4K resolution - you are still looking at 2840x2160 px but at a much greater distance. The missing fine detail would not be visible at those viewing distances, so it is a wash.

Lukabulla

I have managed to do it ... The small image 6x4 inches on screen . I right clicked to save as Desktop background ... got full screen image with no pixelating , found image on desktop properties , seemed to be a strange format , made a copy and renamed it with .jpg .. Bang ! I now got a full size image in good quality in my files !!!

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FINAL SCORE

Naive but Clever User: 1

Knowitall Geeks: Zilcho

Game Analysis:
Geeks ignored important element of OP query and relied on conventional “Snowball” offense but lacked coordination. Never scored. Quite possibly Geeks still do not comprehend NbCU’s “Silver Bullet”.

Lukabulla

lol

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HIGH FIVE !!!!!

Verrrrrrry clever workaround !!!

editorsteve

PS adds pixels by looking at nearby pixels and interpolation. AI or fractal software gets far better results by predicting patterns and by taking account of how the original 2x2 or 4x4 or 16x16 pixel blocks in a jpg were combined to make each jpg block to compress in the first place.

EoS_User Loc: Oshawa, Ontario Canada

Yeah, no kidding. The stuff they have on CSI allows them to enhance a single pixel into a readily readable windshield parking permit sticker.

mikegreenwald Loc: Illinois

Have you tried "Perfect Resize" - the old "Genuine Fractals"? I believe it's an ON 1 app, and does an amazing job.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

If you have an Adobe software, you can go to image >resize>image size>RESAMPLE image and constrain proportions boxes checked>choose Bicubic smoother>and increase pixels per inch by 10% and then continue to increase the pixels by 10% each time until you get something that looks reasonable ( you may want to stop after after 6 or 7 times) - this is known as pixel enlargement. There are several other specialty programs that do this also. It is not perfect, but beats pixelation ....
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DebAnn Loc: Toronto

Do you want to print the images or just see them on screen? 72 dpi (dots per inch) refers to printer tech. 72 isn't enough to produce a good print. When I print, I use images at 300 dpi. If it's 72 ppi (pixels per inch) it refers to your computer screen. 72 is enough for that. So back to printing, your best bet in my experience is to try blowing up the images with a program designed for that - Topaz has one and ON1 has one. There are others available. The two mentioned work very well, depending of course on the quality of the original images.