By Ahsan Khowaja · Updated 27 October 2026
How to use the inches to pixels converter
- Choose print or photo size to enter a width and height, or single length for one measurement such as 12 inches.
- Type the inches. Decimals are fine: 8.5, 3.5, 0.75.
- Set the resolution the pixels are for. If a print shop, photo booth or application form says "300 DPI", pick 300. If you are sizing something for a web page, 96 PPI matches how browsers map inches to pixels.
- The result is the pixel size, rounded to whole pixels because an image cannot have part of a pixel, plus the total pixel count and megapixels. The table underneath shows the same inches at every other resolution.
Start from the pixel side instead with the pixels to inches converter, or from centimetres with the cm to pixels converter.
Inch to pixel formula
Pixels = inches × pixels per inch. Inches is the physical length you want. Pixels per inch (PPI, or DPI when talking about printers) is how many image pixels will be packed into each inch. Multiply them to get the number of pixels that side of the image must have.
- 12 inches to pixels: 12 × 300 = 3,600 px at print quality; 12 × 96 = 1,152 px at screen density.
- 5 inches to pixels: 5 × 300 = 1,500 px; 5 × 72 = 360 px.
- 2 × 2 inches to pixels: 2 × 300 = 600, so 600 × 600 px. At 600 DPI the same photo would be 1,200 × 1,200 px.
When the answer isn't whole, round it. 3.5 inches at 150 DPI is 525 px exactly, but 3.5 inches at 72 PPI is 252 px, and 2.75 inches at 300 DPI is 825 px. The converter rounds and shows the exact figure in a note so you can see what was dropped.
How many pixels in an inch?
The honest answer is "as many as you decide", which is why a converter has to ask. There are three numbers that come up again and again:
- 96 for anything on screen. The W3C's CSS Values and Units specification fixes
1inat96px, so a 2 inch wide box in CSS is 192 pixels wide and Windows at 100 % scaling draws it the same way. - 300 for photo prints, flyers and most document uploads. At 300 DPI the individual dots are too small to see at reading distance, so this is the figure labs and designers default to.
- 72 as a leftover from early Macintosh screens. It still appears as the default resolution tag in many image files, but no current display works at 72.
Posters and banners are often printed at 150 DPI, or even 100, because nobody looks at them from 30 cm away. Fine art and some ID photo scans use 600 DPI. If you have been given a different figure, choose Custom and type it.
Inches to pixels at 300 DPI: print sizes
The pixel dimensions a standard print needs for full 300 DPI quality. An image this size or larger prints sharp; a smaller one still prints, at a lower effective DPI.
| Print size (inches) | Pixels at 300 DPI | Megapixels | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 × 2 | 600 × 600 px | 0.36 MP | US passport and visa photos |
| 2 × 3 | 600 × 900 px | 0.54 MP | Wallet prints |
| 3.5 × 5 | 1,050 × 1,500 px | 1.58 MP | Small photo print |
| 4 × 6 | 1,200 × 1,800 px | 2.16 MP | Standard photo print |
| 5 × 7 | 1,500 × 2,100 px | 3.15 MP | Greeting cards, frames |
| 8 × 10 | 2,400 × 3,000 px | 7.2 MP | Portrait prints |
| 8.5 × 11 | 2,550 × 3,300 px | 8.42 MP | US Letter page, flyers |
| 11 × 14 | 3,300 × 4,200 px | 13.86 MP | Framed prints |
| 11 × 17 | 3,300 × 5,100 px | 16.83 MP | Tabloid / small poster |
| 12 × 18 | 3,600 × 5,400 px | 19.44 MP | Large print |
| 16 × 20 | 4,800 × 6,000 px | 28.8 MP | Wall print |
| 24 × 36 | 7,200 × 10,800 px | 77.76 MP | Poster (150 DPI: 3,600 × 5,400 px) |
The megapixel column is why camera resolution matters for big prints: a 12 MP phone photo (about 4032 × 3024 px) covers an 8 × 10 at 300 DPI but not an 11 × 14, though at 250 DPI it prints 16 × 12 inches and still looks good. The megapixel calculator and print size calculator go further into which camera covers which print.
Passport photo size in pixels: the 2 × 2 inch case
US passport and visa photos are 2 × 2 inches. The State Department's digital image requirements say an uploaded photo must be square, at least 600 × 600 pixels and at most 1200 × 1200 pixels, and that an existing printed photo should be scanned at 300 pixels per inch. Those numbers agree with the arithmetic: 2 inches × 300 DPI = 600 pixels, and 2 inches × 600 DPI = 1200 pixels.
Other countries specify their photos in millimetres (35 × 45 mm is common); the cm to pixels converter handles those. Whatever the size, two things matter when you prepare the file: the pixel dimensions must match the form's requirement, and the file size (KB) often has its own limit. Our image resizer crops to an exact pixel size and the KB reducer brings the file under a stated limit, both in your browser.
Inches to pixels lookup table
Whole-inch lengths, plus the half sizes that appear in US paper and photo formats, at each common resolution:
| Inches | 72 PPI | 96 PPI | 150 DPI | 300 DPI | 600 DPI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.5 in | 36 px | 48 px | 75 px | 150 px | 300 px |
| 1 in | 72 px | 96 px | 150 px | 300 px | 600 px |
| 1.5 in | 108 px | 144 px | 225 px | 450 px | 900 px |
| 2 in | 144 px | 192 px | 300 px | 600 px | 1,200 px |
| 3 in | 216 px | 288 px | 450 px | 900 px | 1,800 px |
| 3.5 in | 252 px | 336 px | 525 px | 1,050 px | 2,100 px |
| 4 in | 288 px | 384 px | 600 px | 1,200 px | 2,400 px |
| 5 in | 360 px | 480 px | 750 px | 1,500 px | 3,000 px |
| 6 in | 432 px | 576 px | 900 px | 1,800 px | 3,600 px |
| 7 in | 504 px | 672 px | 1,050 px | 2,100 px | 4,200 px |
| 8 in | 576 px | 768 px | 1,200 px | 2,400 px | 4,800 px |
| 8.5 in | 612 px | 816 px | 1,275 px | 2,550 px | 5,100 px |
| 10 in | 720 px | 960 px | 1,500 px | 3,000 px | 6,000 px |
| 11 in | 792 px | 1,056 px | 1,650 px | 3,300 px | 6,600 px |
| 12 in | 864 px | 1,152 px | 1,800 px | 3,600 px | 7,200 px |
| 24 in | 1,728 px | 2,304 px | 3,600 px | 7,200 px | 14,400 px |
8.5 × 11 in pixels and other document sizes
A US Letter page is 8.5 × 11 inches, so a full-page scan or design is 2,550 × 3,300 px at 300 DPI, 1,275 × 1,650 px at 150 DPI and 816 × 1,056 px at 96 PPI. Legal paper (8.5 × 14 in) is 2,550 × 4,200 px at 300 DPI, and Tabloid (11 × 17 in) is 3,300 × 5,100 px. Scanners use the same maths in reverse: a page scanned at 300 DPI produces an image with those pixel dimensions, which is why 300 DPI scans of text are around 8 megapixels.
For web layouts the figures are smaller because the browser's inch is 96 pixels. A design mock-up of a Letter page for print preview is 816 × 1,056 CSS pixels, and a 1 inch margin is 96 px. Remember that CSS pixels are not device pixels: a high-density phone draws each CSS pixel with two or three physical ones, so export images at 2× or 3× for them. The PPI calculator shows a device's real density.
