Converting Pixels

[RobertTheBruce]

How do I convert pixels to inches? Any help would be muchly appreciated!

[drhowarddrfine]

There is no direct correlation between the two. You can have 10 pixels per inch or a thousand.

[WebJoel]

Perhaps you can explain a bit more what you are trying to do? It sounds as if you are trhing to make something for media="print" (to support proper print-outs on a printer)..

[RobertTheBruce]

Thank-you WebJole for your interest in my dilemma. I have some images (pictures, drawings, text, etc .) scanned and saved that were originally of a particular size.....say 3" by 6".

Now when I print out any these images each prints out "letter size"; nearly filling the whole sheet of letter paper.

The software program that stores these images (Microsoft 2007 Office Picture Manager) offers a tool to resize them by increasing or decreasing the number of pixel; hight and width of the image. One document I scanned, that filled a letter size piece of paper, recorded 2550 (W) by 3300 (H) pixels.
However, when I print it out or send it in an E-mail sizes at 5" (W) by 6" (H).

Soooo......is there an conversion to use that is always true.....for example
"1000 pixels equals one half inch"? That way I could re-size just once to fit my need vs. change the pixel "widths and heights" multiple times and print out the images multiple times until I got a printed image that was near the size I needed?

Sorry for being so wordy here.

Thanks,

RobertTheBruce

[felgall]

Don't use pixels for anything other than screen sizes as pixel sizes are defined in terms of screen resolution and have no size when used elsewhere.

If you want sizes in inches for print purposes then define the sizes for output in inches rather than pixels. That way whether it needs 50 pixels per inch or 50,000 pixels per inch it will display at the size you want (and both those values are equally likely values for the pixels per inch conversion).

[aaron.martinas]

very nice explanation felg! it compliments and expounds on drhoward's post poifectly.

[WebJoel]

Did you get the answer you need for this? It has been awhile since I needed to make a web image have a special 'print size' for that purpose. It was a map for a Nursery School Co-op. -I had a map on a web page that when the correct button on the web page was clicked, would use a special media="print" rule and print out *just the map* and some descriptive text directions (not the entire page), and be centered in a convenient 8X10 page size.

-It was something I found online and modified for my own use..