Product image resolution: what you need per channel

What resolution is, and where DPI fits in

Resolution is simply how much image information sits in a file, expressed in pixels: width by height, for example 2000 by 2000. More pixels means more detail, and therefore more room to zoom, crop or print large.

Alongside that you run into PPI and DPI. PPI (pixels per inch) relates to screens, DPI (dots per inch) to how many ink dots a printer places per inch of paper. The two get mixed up constantly.

One misconception is worth clearing up first, because it causes the most confusion in practice: the old rule that web images should be "72 DPI" means nothing. A browser looks only at the pixel count. A 2000 by 2000 file at 72 DPI and the same file at 300 DPI are exactly as sharp on your product page. DPI is an instruction for the printer: it decides how large those same pixels become on paper. When your printer asks for 300 DPI, they are really asking for enough pixels for the size they intend to print.

Two quick examples. A 4 by 6 inch photo at 300 DPI needs about 1,200 by 1,800 pixels. An A4 page at 300 DPI needs about 2,480 by 3,508 pixels. If you already know a product will run full page in your catalogue, you know what you need before you start.

1K, 2K and 4K in plain language

Tools and price lists increasingly label output as 1K, 2K or 4K. That refers to the long edge of the image:

• •1K: roughly 1,000 pixels on the long edge
• •2K: roughly 2,000 pixels on the long edge
• •4K: roughly 4,000 pixels on the long edge

Watch what happens when you step up. You double both the width and the height, so you quadruple the pixel count. 4K holds roughly sixteen times as many pixels as 1K. That explains why a 4K file weighs so much more, and why "just render everything at 4K" is a more expensive decision than it looks.

How many pixels each channel needs

Here is what the major channels ask for or recommend, according to their own documentation. These requirements change regularly, so check them at the source when it matters. The link sits under each list.

Your own store

• •Default for product imagery: around 2,000 by 2,000 pixels
• •Shopify recommends 2048 by 2048 pixels with a 5000 by 5000 maximum; zoom works from more than 800 by 800 pixels
• •WooCommerce recommends at least 800 by 800 pixels; in the default Storefront theme that is exactly the size the zoom effect needs, and larger is better for products with fine detail
• •A full width hero or banner: 1920 by 1080 pixels as a base, 3840 by 2160 for high density screens

Source: the Shopify Help Center and the WooCommerce documentation.

Marketplaces

• •Amazon: 500 to 10,000 pixels on the longest side, and Amazon itself prefers more than 1,000 pixels per side, because that is what activates zoom
• •eBay: at least 500 pixels on the longest side, 800 to 1,600 pixels recommended
• •Etsy: 2,000 pixels on the shortest side recommended

Source: Amazon, eBay and Etsy. Those are floors, not targets. We treat 2,000 by 2,000 pixels as the workable standard for marketplaces, so the same file still holds up on your own product page and in a crop.

Resolution is the entry requirement on a marketplace, not the differentiator. What actually separates the strongest listings is covered in our piece on standing out on marketplaces.

Social

• •Instagram feed square: 1080 by 1080 pixels
• •Instagram portrait: 1080 by 1350 pixels
• •Stories and Reels: 1080 by 1920 pixels
• •YouTube thumbnail: 1280 by 720 pixels

Social is where 4K returns the least. The feed compresses your image anyway. 1K to 2K is plenty here, and your effort is better spent on the right aspect ratio than on extra pixels. Why an image that performs on social does not automatically work on a product page is covered in the same image on social and on your product page.

Print

• •Viewed up close (catalogue, packaging, brochure): 300 DPI
• •Poster at arm's length: 150 DPI is enough
• •Banner or trade show panel seen from a few metres: 72 DPI will do

Always convert back to pixels before you hand anything over. A 2,000 pixel wide image at 300 DPI is only about 17 centimetres wide on paper. That fits half a catalogue page, not a spread.

Products where the detail is the story

Jewellery, watches, textiles, engravings, fine print: for these, zooming in is the sales argument. Here 4K is not a luxury, it is the point. The same logic applies to hero crops where you want to cut in tight on a detail.

Why you should not render everything at 4K

If more pixels is always better, why not max everything out? Three reasons.

Weight. At the same framing a 4K file holds roughly four times the pixels of a 2K file, with the file size to match. On a 300 pixel thumbnail in a grid your visitor sees none of that benefit; they only wait longer.

Cost and time. Higher resolution costs more in almost every AI tool, ours included. And it takes longer. At ten images you will not notice; across a catalogue of five hundred SKUs you will.

Not automatically better. With AI imagery there is one more factor: generating far above the range a model was trained on can actually reduce quality, introducing repetitive patterns and artefacts. An image genuinely made at 4K is not the same as an image stretched to 4K.

Upscaling does not fix it

This is the sentence to take away: upscaling makes an image bigger, but it cannot add detail that was never captured. Start with an 800 pixel web export and blow it up to 4,000 and you have a large, soft file.

Modern AI upscalers do something more awkward still: they fill in the missing information. That produces stitching, weave patterns or text that your product does not have. On a background wall that is harmless. On the product you are selling it is a misrepresentation, and it is exactly the kind of error a customer discovers while unpacking. We went through that failure mode in detail in AI product photo accuracy: stop invented details.

The check is simple: put the upscaled file next to the original at full size and ask whether the detail you see is actually in the original. Below is how large that gap gets on an image we made for a client.

The rule: one master, many exports

The approach that holds up in practice is this: create one master at the highest resolution your source supports, and export from it what each slot needs. 2K for everything shown small, 4K only where someone genuinely zooms or where it gets printed.

In practice that means:

• •Keep the master and never hand it out as the finished deliverable
• •Export per channel in the size and aspect ratio that channel asks for
• •Use modern formats such as WebP or AVIF on your site; they compress considerably better than JPEG and PNG
• •Record which version a file is in its name or metadata, so nobody forwards a thumbnail by accident
• •Decide per product whether it falls into the "detail is the sales argument" category, and pick 4K there

The dealer trap: where this goes wrong in practice

If you sell through dealers, retailers or other sales partners, there is a scenario we see more often than we would like. A dealer needs an image of your product. They find your product page, right click the image, save it and drop it into their own store, their newsletter or their printed leaflet.

What they saved is your web export: a compressed file of maybe 1,200 pixels, exactly large enough for your own product page and far too small for their leaflet. The result is there, but soft, with your brand name underneath it. And you only find out once the leaflet is printed.

Resolution is therefore not only a production question but a distribution question. Your dealers need access to the right file, in the right version, without having to ask for it. That is what our distribution module is for: you make your imagery centrally available to everyone who sells your products, so they stop falling back on a screenshot or an outdated folder. How to structure that is covered in our piece on digital asset management with AI.

How we handle this at LensLab

We produce product visuals with AI, with a creator from our own team checking the result before it reaches you. Resolution is a deliberate choice per image here, not a default setting.

You can see that in how we price it. In the Visual Generator, saving or downloading a visual costs 0.75 to 1.5 credits depending on resolution. Through Visual Studio Pro, where our creators do the work, you pay from 5 credits per accepted visual, 5 to 10 depending on resolution. That is not arbitrary: higher resolution costs us more too. So we ask up front where an image will end up instead of defaulting to the heaviest file.

A real example. For Xenz, part of Beterbad Sanitair, we produced lifestyle visuals for their catalogue of baths and taps. Their existing supplier could not meet the deadline. We delivered high resolution, print ready visuals within three days, built around their actual product dimensions and finishes. Those same files then went on to their store and their dealer network. That is the case for working at print level once: you need the top level a single time and can derive every smaller format from it. The reverse does not work. More examples are on our use cases page.

And to be straight about it: high resolution is not a switch that solves everything on our side either. Fine patterns, glossy and transparent surfaces and small printed text remain the hardest categories, however many pixels you throw at them. We would rather tell you that up front than have you discover it on delivery.

A checklist before you release an image

• •Do you know where this image lands? Product page, marketplace, social or print
• •Is this the master or an export? Never circulate an export as a source file
• •Will anyone zoom into it? Then 2,000 pixels minimum, 4,000 for detail products
• •Is it going to the printer? Convert the print size back to pixels at 300 DPI
• •Has it been upscaled? Compare it to the original and check for invented detail
• •Is the file ready for your dealers, in the version they need?

If you want to review your product page more broadly than resolution alone, use our visual checklist for a product page that converts. What everything costs is on our pricing page, and you can see how it works first. You start with five free credits, good for five images.