Designer Quick Tip: Sharp image signatures in Microsoft Outlook

This quick tip isn't directly related to Webflow but still comes in handy for any Designer working with Microsoft Outlook or creating email graphics for a client who is using Outlook as their preferred email application.

The problem

You've just created an email signature (or any other graphic that you'd like to insert into your email via Outlook's "insert" button) for yourself or your client. The image looked great in Figma, Photoshop or Sketch but the recipient ends up with a pixelated/blurry image. This is due to the way Outlook handles the image in combination to its dpi value. Outlook will re-scale the image as if it was a 96 dpi image. When sending, Outlook converts and compresses (re-renders) the images to 96 dpi with the new dimensions.

How to fix this

1. Open the image in Photoshop (or a similar image editing tool)
2. Select Image —> Image Size
3. Set the resolution to 96 dpi
4. Check the resample checkbox and choose Preserve Details (default is 'Automatic'). Also set the "Reduce Noise" slider to 100%.
5. You can then save the image as a jpeg file and insert it into your email.
6. If you still experience issues try to save the graphic as png file instead.

Hope this was helpful for you, especially if you're working with an email client such as Outlook.

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