: While understanding the math behind DPI is essential (which jhocking covered in his answer) soft proofing is a lot easier task in Photoshop. Either: use Zoom tool's Print Size option or select

@LarsenBagley460

While understanding the math behind DPI is essential (which jhocking covered in his answer) soft proofing is a lot easier task in Photoshop. Either:


use Zoom tool's Print Size option or
select View → Print Size from the menu.


This will show image in life-sized inches on your display.

For the Print Size to work, you must define your screen's correct PPI under Preferences → Units & Rulers → Screen Resolution. By default it is 72 PPI, but it may not suit your screen. While PPI calculation is rather simple (x = dp ÷ di — Where dp = "diagonal resolution in pixels" and di = "diagonal size in inches"), you could just check if your display is listed in e.g. dpi.lv's database or just their calculator.

In turn, changing the setting also changes the default "DPI" value for new screen file presets — but, keep in mind, the DPI value doesn't matter for screen images, so you shouldn't worry about that.

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