: Scott's answer is good. Some pedantic nit-picking: It really depends on the type of art. If we're talking line art, and your printer creates engraving plates, the resolution can be considered

@Holmes874

Scott's answer is good.

Some pedantic nit-picking:

It really depends on the type of art. If we're talking line art, and your printer creates engraving plates, the resolution can be considered infinite. Granted, that's an atypical scenario.

If the art is digitally scanned, so that it is an image of some sort, than 300dpi is pretty much the standard, though as Scott states, you can go a bit higher.

It also depends on how the color separations will be printed. If it's a typical line screen, it will be lower than if they are using a method such as stochastic screens which can handle more dpi data.

As for black vs CMY, there is no difference in terms of the LPI (the line screen resolution). But note that the LPI is different than the DPI of the film/plate itself. Typically, film output for creating plates is 1200dpi. Some can go as high as 4800dpi. This won't directly affect your LPI, but will affect your solid line art (such as text). Text printed at 300dpi is fairly awful.

The likely bigger factor, however, is physical size. Do you know how big your art book will be? A 300dpi image set up for an 6x8 book will be insufficient for a huge 12x14 book. If your hardware can handle it, it probably makes sense err on the side of too-much resolution for now until the details of the final book are finalized.

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