image size for internet use

<p>im a portrait photographer, and my clients get the final portrait of them, enlarged on A3+ paper, and framed. nothing more. im often having clients asking for a digital version to send to friends on email or put up on their facebook and the likes. I have decided that I dont mind providing them with that, but want to make sure it's at a size that can only be used for that. Not at a resolution where they can get quality prints. so would a 4*6inch image size at 70dpi be a good setting? please advice.</p>

<p>again, need it so that its a good size for email and facebook, but bad quality prints if they do try.<br>

thank you</p>

<p>To avoid confusion you should think in terms of number of pixels when resizing images for the web. <br>

Facebook supports a maximum image size of 720 x 720 pixels, so assuming your shots are 3:2 aspect ratio then resizing them to 720 x 480 should do the trick. You could probably still get an OK 6"x4" print from this, but that's about all.<br>

Note facebook recently increased the upload size to 720 from 604 pixels, there is nothing to stop you using a smaller image size of course.</p>

<p>thank you martin, if i want to go one notch down still to avoid a decent 4*6 print but still have something ok for internet viewing, what would you suggest?</p>

<p>i shoot with my nikon d700</p>

<p>Generally 180dpi is considered the acceptable minimum for a good quality print, this would mean that a 6"x4" print would need to be around 1080 x 720 pixels, this is obviously higher than the 720 x 480 I stated earlier, however it is not an exact science as different printers will impact the end result as well as people expectations of quality - (I would not be that satisfied with a 180 dpi print!)<br /> Personally I would be happy sending them at 600 x 400.</p>

<p>thank you martin, very helpful of you. will give it a try and do a test print.<br>

so do i only punch in the pixels? no need for ppi?</p>

<p>The ppi value has absolutely nothing to do with how many pixels are actually there. It can be a useful value for certain printing-related topics, but when it comes to on-screen display of images, actual pixels-wide by pixels-tall real dimensions are all that matter. A 600 x 400 pixel JPG file is still a 600 x 400 pixel file whether it's stamped in the file header as being 10 ppi or 10,000 ppi. So, yes: work in terms of final pixel dimensions. And don't forget to include the EXIF/IPTC data you want seen to help leave a trail, showing who created the image.</p>

<p>thank you matt. where do i put the EXIF/IPTC date? this is new to me, what do you mean? please explain. much thanks. <br>

im thinking of adding a copyright symbol with my name along the border of the image, will create a white border and have that info there.</p>

<p>but please do explain the EXIF. much thanks</p>

<p>PPI _does_ make a difference. If you give them a 600x pixel file, and make it 300 Pixels Per Inch, they can make a very good print. For best understanding, make a file that size, and print it. PPI is the same as RESOLUTION and the higher the PPI, the larger the print they can make. If they know what they are doing, they can even change PPI from 72 to 300 PPI and make a better print. The lower you make the resolution, the less likely it is they can make a good print. . . <br>

Fool around with the PPI and file size of 600-700 pixels wide to see what quality print you want to send. Some even would do a 600 high, by as few as 52 PPI to make sure a good print cant be made.<br>

Because people normally think of printing in DOTS Per Inch, they dont think that PPI counts when printing. But, a file that is high in PPI, makes a LARGER file even if the length x width is limited to 600 pixels. Thus, a 300 PPI file can make a much sharper original. They can as an example change it to a to a 1200x and get a larger print.<br>

Then when printing it, set the printer to 600 or 1200 DOTS per inch and get a good image.... Larger DPI in printing, also means a better quality print. I never print at less than 1200 DPI, and sometimes on canvas print at 2400 DPI.....</p>

<p>thank you robert. so do you say a 600*400 image at 70dpi will do the trick?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>If you give them a 600x pixel file, and make it 300 Pixels Per Inch, they can make a very good print.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This is absolutely not true, along with much of the rest of Robert Joshnston's post. A 600x400px file at 300ppi is the same as a 600x400px file at 5ppi. PPI settings only matter when inch dimensions are given. Follow Matt's advice above. </p>

<p>To reiterate, the only resolution that counts is the number of pixels. The size (e.g., inches) and pixels/inch are derivatives of that number, and are merely used as tags for printing. If the number of pixels is constant, you can change size or ppi but not both.</p>

<p>Internet Explorer (and most web browsers) display images on a pixel=pixel basis. The apparent size of the image depends on the size of your monitor and its resolution (e.g., 1024x1280). For example, if you set the image size to 400x600 pixels, it will fill about half the width of the screen for pleasant viewing, yet be suitable for only making a wallet-sized print (2x3 inches at 300 ppi). The client could print larger, but the quality would suffer greatly.</p>

<p>(Robert needs to go back to school.)</p>

<p>There are some cases where it is better to set the desired PPI, like when you superimpose text to your images.<br>

There are also applications that use ppi and dimension instead of pixels, like some versions of Flash.</p>

<p>so whats the final take on this? :)<br>

what should i input for IMAGE SIZE in photoshop?</p>

<p>600 X 400.</p>

<p><Chas></p>

<p>Pixels are like Dollars. dpi and ppi are like the size bills used to buy something.</p>

<p>If I buy 40 dollars worth of film from the Fotomat;</p>

<p>I can pay with two 20's or four 10's or eight 5's or forty 1's; Fotomat still gets 40 dollars.</p>

<p>Mark Ratner might purposely to vist 20 times for those 2 dollar rolls</p>

<p>"Mike Damone: I can see it all now, this is gonna be just like last summer. You fell in love with that girl at the Fotomat, you bought forty dollars worth of ***** film, and you never even talked to her. You don't even own a camera."<br /> <br /><br /> In printing here one tends to think first in print size in inches; then the ppi that print has or requires; basically the same as pixels.<br /> <br /><br /> But with a web image; as already mentioned; what matters is just pixels; a lower number reduces your losses with folks lifting images.<br /> <br /><br /> Web stuff should be more for selling your images than giving away the farm.</p>

<p>A huge group of folks post big images on the web with no watermarks; no contact info; no lines through them if giant; and wonder why folks download them and print them at home; folks basically give away a mess of images.</p>

 

<p>4x6 inches at 75dpi and will look fine on a monitor and if they try to print that it'll look like dog poo.</p>

<p>In order to do anything with a monitor that will simulate ppi or dpi changes: I think this would have to be a changing of<strong> the user's monitor settings, by the viewer.</strong> Ever scale the workspace area on a monitor with the display settings? Maybe by doing something like that could someone make a picture look better or worse. I can't think of ever seeing anyone do this just to see one photo.</p>

<p>Maybe a zoom control in a browser application, again by the viewer, could do it. The image file itself would be the same; it'd be a presentation change on their end, by them.</p>

<p>It's not that this type of change can't be done; it's that we associate that concept with the wrong hardware and software parameters. It's more about the viewer's computer than it is about the image file, with respect to immediate control over the image's presentation.</p>

<p>The quality settings for the printer are not the same as quality on the monitor. Most of those software controls about DPI and PPI are for printers, not monitors. There's basically nothing for the monitor that you can set up where you are. You can write your own HTML page, and try to style it to create a foundation for web presentation basics; but, really, it's not going to be anything in the JPEG file itself. And still, that viewer's monitor would affect a bunch of stuff, just the same.</p>

<p>People keep looking in the wrong place for this type of answer. Realistically, there's no good way to solve this problem. It's just a function of transmitting to a wide variety of receivers.</p>

<p>Thus, a relatively small JPEG (under 600 px) will be more than adequate for a lot of web uses. You have no control over how someone else set up their monitor, what kind it is, or how it interprets anything. That interpreting is what that video hardware's all about. There's a great variety of video hardware and software out there; it'd be very ineffective to try to predict the appearance of anything on someone else's monitor, just based on the export settings.</p>

<p>A small 600 pixel image is what folks often bring in for big posters too; this size image is good enough for 3x10 foot hockey dasher boards and most highway/freeway billboards</p>

<p>Consider just emailing them a link to a low res Flickr slideshow. It would present nicer and solve many of your problems.</p>

<p>Unless some one has very large monitors I find that 700x700 or 700x 1000 etc is good . Tha max size for this forum is a good guide and that is about 700 x 700 .</p>

<p>I am assuming you are doing this for copyright reasons so you should check you copyright laws for your country and state , here in Australia the commissioning party owns the copyright therefore they have a right to get prints wherever they wish to .<br>

Personally for me I just supply high res files ( if you call 10MB hi res ) charge an extra price and be done with it .<br>

I also have a growing trend for clients to just want files they can take and get printed at Kmart .<br>

If some one hires you to take there photo you really don't have the right to dictate what they do with that photo . its there photo and you provide a service for witch you get paid to do</p>

<p>thank you all for your replies & advice - much appreciated.<br>

my thought is, although i'm hoping they will only use the image for web use, i still can't guarantee that they won't attempt to make prints out of it. so to cover all scenarios, is it not best to punch in ALL info for image size?<br>

so punching in 600*400 pixels<br>

then let's say 4*6inch for image size<br>

and 55dpi.</p>

<p>would i not be safer including all that info to cover anything they might do with the image?</p>

<p>No. They can't do anything different with an image by putting in any more info than the pixels. The additional info you have specified here would not work anyway since they aren't equivalent. Displayed images don't have inches, so they don't have dpi (or ppi). Just do image size in pixels. Everything else is irrelevant for web display.</p>

<p>thank you jeff - so i take it the final thought is 600*400 is the number i should punch in ... and with that, they will struggle to get anything more than a 6*4 image ... most likely a print much smaller than that - is that correct?</p>

<p>They can certainly print it at that size but it won't look very good. Also, if you use a watermark, it will help. If you have a watermark through the center, it will be very difficult to print it at all, but it won't look particularly nice. I use a watermark along the bottom edge, the image has even fewer pixels if they crop it out (example below.)<br /><br /><center><img src="http://www.spirer.com/abigailbackstage/content/bin/images/large/357P3847.jpg" alt="" width="525" height="700" /><br>

<em>Portrait</em></center></p>