Selling instant digital downloads online

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and hope I came to the right place for a little help. I am thinking about selling instant digital downloads on an online markerplace like Etsy. I never sold prints before and have a question about printout sizes for the description. My question is, what is the max size or percentage the picture can be printed at without losing quality? I see on some sellers sites that they have a "recommended print up to size". I shoot all my photos in RAW format and convert them to JPEG. So, for example, if the photo is an uncropped 300 dpi jpg and 6000 x 4000 pixil size, which comes out to 20" x 13.333", what would be the largest the "print up to" or percent size I could put in the description? Or is 20 x 13.3 the recommended max size? Thanks in advance!!

Hello,

 

I'm new to this forum and hope I came to the right place for a little help. I am thinking about selling instant digital downloads on an online markerplace like Etsy. I never sold prints before and have a question about printout sizes for the description. My question is, what is the max size or percentage the picture can be printed at without losing quality? I see on some sellers sites that they have a "recommended print up to size". I shoot all my photos in RAW format and convert them to JPEG. So, for example, if the photo is an uncropped 300 dpi jpg and 6000 x 4000 pixil size, which comes out to 20" x 13.333", what would be the largest the "print up to" or percent size I could put in the description? Or is 20 x 13.3 the recommended max size? Thanks in advance!!

Kinda complex and technical question and so is the answer. People can enlarge or downsize pictures as they will, there are no limits BUT there are technical limits to produce a good or acceptable result. As a reference I worked in the printing industry, basically you DON'T want to enlarge anything.

You can use simple math. Let's say you pick a picture in full good quality, it will be usually at 72 or 96 DPI, you can use photoshop and then build your simple math table to calculate the size in inches based on 200DPI or 300DPI, a simple table for the client should be enough.

You can get away with 200DPI for mostly everything, but high quality printing starts at 300DPI.

You ask "without loosing quality", well saving anything on JPG means quality loss, from there you shouldn't enlarge anything, but... practical everyday experiences in real life production reveal you could... get away with 10% enlarging but I don't recommend it. The enlarging and the quality loss by the JPG affect every image differently, that's a factor to take in count. If you don't want to use a simple table, you can display a "max printable size: X" and so people can see a limit, while anything below would be great.

I would recommend a nice and long terms of use. We had mixed experiences with clients using full res pictures but instead of delivering a great final art, they just exported a PDF file with whatever settings and so, the images where recompressed using diff JPG settings and then they still wondered why max res wasn't taking place. It's technical but writing something like that inside the terms of use can save you some pains.

Kinda complex and technical question and so is the answer. People can enlarge or downsize pictures as they will, there are no limits BUT there are technical limits to produce a good or acceptable result. As a reference I worked in the printing industry, basically you DON'T want to enlarge anything.

 

You can use simple math. Let's say you pick a picture in full good quality, it will be usually at 72 or 96 DPI, you can use photoshop and then build your simple math table to calculate the size in inches based on 200DPI or 300DPI, a simple table for the client should be enough.

 

You can get away with 200DPI for mostly everything, but high quality printing starts at 300DPI.

 

You ask "without loosing quality", well saving anything on JPG means quality loss, from there you shouldn't enlarge anything, but... practical everyday experiences in real life production reveal you could... get away with 10% enlarging but I don't recommend it. The enlarging and the quality loss by the JPG affect every image differently, that's a factor to take in count. If you don't want to use a simple table, you can display a "max printable size: X" and so people can see a limit, while anything below would be great.

 

I would recommend a nice and long terms of use. We had mixed experiences with clients using full res pictures but instead of delivering a great final art, they just exported a PDF file with whatever settings and so, the images where recompressed using diff JPG settings and then they still wondered why max res wasn't taking place. It's technical but writing something like that inside the terms of use can save you some pains.

Thank you for this info! So I will just state the original photo size in the description (ex. 6000 x 4000 = 20" x 13.3") and not write ANY enlargement recommendations for safety sake. I am just thinking about buyer questions that may come up prior to listing any photos online. So, if someone asks if it can be enlarged to poster size, I will just recommend they have it printed at its original size or smaller and if they still want it larger, I will just let them know that some sharpness and detail will be lost. Is that what you would recommend?

Thank you for this info! So I will just state the original photo size in the description (ex. 6000 x 4000 = 20" x 13.3") and not write ANY enlargement recommendations for safety sake. I am just thinking about buyer questions that may come up prior to listing any photos online. So, if someone asks if it can be enlarged to poster size, I will just recommend they have it printed at its original size or smaller and if they still want it larger, I will just let them know that some sharpness and detail will be lost. Is that what you would recommend?

You are welcome. A max size print sounds to me like the best option. I wouldn't include any text on the same download page about sharpness and detail being lost if enlarged, instead I would just write a detailed terms of use page (it's impressive how some people react negatively to those words on the same page or are unable to understand what that means in that context). Your idea sounds fine as a disclaimer "you can enlarge up to 10% but we don't recommend it".

I sold photos in the past as images on a CD/DVD and also as digital downloads. My personal approach was including the table with the sizes given the resolution in every case (high res print on fine paper 300dpi, multiple uses 200dpi, digital documents and web 72dpi). Some websites use "posters/fine paper/magazine .... regular paper .... web" but that's their choice, to me it seemed confusing. And I also included a link to the terms of use and technical aspects page. In the long run people would often ask me direct questions by email and the direct answer was enough (I take it they consider that direct answer as a safe line).

Good luck on your business

You are welcome. A max size print sounds to me like the best option. I wouldn't include any text on the same download page about sharpness and detail being lost if enlarged, instead I would just write a detailed terms of use page (it's impressive how some people react negatively to those words on the same page or are unable to understand what that means in that context). Your idea sounds fine as a disclaimer "you can enlarge up to 10% but we don't recommend it".

 

I sold photos in the past as images on a CD/DVD and also as digital downloads. My personal approach was including the table with the sizes given the resolution in every case (high res print on fine paper 300dpi, multiple uses 200dpi, digital documents and web 72dpi). Some websites use "posters/fine paper/magazine .... regular paper .... web" but that's their choice, to me it seemed confusing. And I also included a link to the terms of use and technical aspects page. In the long run people would often ask me direct questions by email and the direct answer was enough (I take it they consider that direct answer as a safe line).

 

Good luck on your business

Great info and much appreciated! Thanks again!

It is usual to view larger prints from a larger distance, so the needed pixel count doesn't increase linearly.

There tends to be a minimum and recommended.

Many of the large (and not so large) printers run at 300dpi, but you can easily get away with less

for the really large sizes. This one:

Shutterfly Help Center

has the Shutterfly recommended minimums. They will enforce values a little less than those.

Note that 6000x4000 is above even the largest print size that they show.

The larger ones are about 100dpi, which is probably fine at reasonable distances,

but 150dpi or 200dpi might not be bad recommendations.

I just came across this thread. I have no experience but it it seems to me thathere 3 stages:

- offering free images

- offering downloadable images for digital use

- offering images for printing

To me, it seems obvious that free digital images would be low-res with a watermark

Paid (digital) images might be full HD resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) or ultra HD (3,840 x 2,160 pixels).

Images for printing would depend on the size, viewing distance and print resolution. I'd just deliver the resolution that you can.

I don’t see why you’d need to give a maximum print size, unless you want to provide a license with print size restrictions. If somebody wants to print a 6000x4000 at 60x40 inches, that’s their call. If they have access to a printer that large, hopefully they know how to use it.

But why on earth would you sell digital downloads on Etsy? There is ridiculously little money in it.