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AiredaleKate
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07-08-08, 12:14 PM
#1

Photo sizes for printing

Hi,

Someone I know is compiling photos to make a charity calendar, and likes some which I have taken.

In order for them to be printed on an average size calendar, what size (in KB?) would the photo files need to be at a minimum without them losing quality?

Thanks!


     
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Snapper
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07-08-08, 12:26 PM
#2

Re: Photo sizes for printing

I am no expert but I would keep the PPI to at least 300 and then crop or reduce to the size you need or ask the printer if it is a professional printer.
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AiredaleKate
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07-08-08, 12:31 PM
#3

Re: Photo sizes for printing

Quote:
Originally Posted by Snapper View Post
I am no expert but I would keep the PPI to at least 300 and then crop or reduce to the size you need or ask the printer if it is a professional printer.
Sorry, to be a thicko, but I am not a serious photographer at all. What does PPI mean please?

When I download them from my camera, file sizes tend to be 1.8 Mb (does that sound right?), but I have reduced the size of some to between 250kb and 500kb for posting on forums, blogs etc, and stupidly have overwritten those large original files in some cases, so wanted to know if the smaller files are viable for printing or not.

Thanks!


     
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Snapper
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07-08-08, 02:24 PM
#4

Re: Photo sizes for printing

Well, I'm not that up on this either but as far as I know PPI is pixels per inch, gosh hope I am right, and for quality printing you need at least 300, well that’s my opinion but I am open to correction. Don’t seem to be many experts about today so at the moment you seem stuck with me.

What sort of software do you use to modify your images? If I know that I may be about to help you.
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AiredaleKate
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07-08-08, 02:30 PM
#5

Re: Photo sizes for printing

Thanks for that. How would I check what the PPI is then?

I normally just make them smaller using Microsoft photo editor if I want to post them on the Airedale forum I'm a member of, which is where this person has seen the photos they'd like to use, by doing "image resize" and resizing to about 25%, which as I say reduces them to 100 - 400Kb generally.


     
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07-08-08, 02:57 PM
#6

Re: Photo sizes for printing

When you click image resize does it give you any other options apart from a percentage?
Kit 1
Pentax K7
Pentax 60-250mm
Sigma 105mm Macro
Pentax 12-24mm
Pentax 50mm 1.4
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Lens as other body
Other Kit
View my profile to see my other kit!
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12-08-08, 09:06 AM
#7

Re: Photo sizes for printing

A lot of people struggle with file sizes v image linear size v print sizes.

All three are dependent upon each other up to a point.

If you have an image that is 3000 pixels along the longest side and 2000 pixels along the shortest side and you wanted to make a print at the suggested resolution of 300 pixels per inch, you could produce a print of 10 inches (3000 divided by 300) by 6.6 inches (2000 divided by 300).

Now the file size for the same image can vary a huge amount. If you were to save it as a Jpeg at the highest quality then you may have a files size of 4mb or more. If you save it at very low quality then the file size could 250kb. However, if you printed the large file you would get a very good print but if you tried to print the smaller file the result would not be very good at all.

And to complicate things even more, the way that image compression (Jpeg) works means that you can have two images of exactly the same image linear size (3000x2000 pixels) but one with a lot of fine detail (lots of leaves for instance) and the other with little detail (plain background behind a single flower say) and when saved in Jpeg form at the same quality setting, one file (the more detailed one) will result in a larger file than the other.

From what you are saying in the original post, sadly I doubt that the files you have would really be up to calender quality.

The one thing to be learnt by this is ALWAYS save the original file from the camera and keep somewhere safe on your hard drive or on DVD/Cd and use copies of the file to do any changes to. Then you always have the original to fall back on.

Steve
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