What resolution??

[janiece_struble]

<p>Please help me. I need to make a client a cd of her images. All LOW-Resolution only (only usable for her website, facebook, myspace, etc.)-- and not printable above a wallet (I don't want it to print a 4x6 and up). What size and resolution to I need to make the images? I do think if they are not low enough resolution she will just end up printing them anyways... so I need the lowest possible but still looks good on the web. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!</p>

[andylynn]

<p>I would say 800 wide, but normal people think that looks fine printed on 4x6 so there's not much you can do.</p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>For the web it doesn't matter, for wallet size maybe 100 ppi.</p>

[janiece_struble]

<p>So do I need to resize AND change the ppi... or just change the ppi?? Thanks so much guys!</p>

[silverpixel]

<p>The resolution of your file is the product of dpi times size - neither of these factors alone is sufficient. For the web I usually go with 72 dpi and a long dimension of 6 inches, which looks decent on screen, but not really enough to print with good quality. In Photoshop, choose image / size, make sure Resample Image and Constrain Proportions are both selected in the lower left of that window, enter the values, and go. You may want to run a sample print from the resulting file to see if it's bad enough for your needs!</p>

[janiece_struble]

<p>Thats awesome.... EXACTLY what I needed to know. Thank you so much! Have a great night ;-)</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>So do I need to resize AND change the ppi... or just change the ppi??</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If you're sizing for the web, size in pixels, ppi is irrelevant. Anything 800 pixels or less on the long side won't look great printing.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>If you want it to be 4x6 or whatever size, then just set the dimensions and set the resolutionn as low as 72ppi, though I do 92 or 100. Or just set the longest dimensions at around 800 (for some reason I use 810). it will be fine.</p>

[Kent Shafer]

<p>If you made the image 300 x 450 pixels, then a 2 x 3 inch print would be 150 ppi - probably barely accpetable quality for most people. But if it were printed 4 x 6 inches, it would only be 75 ppi - pretty bad. Here's what a 300 x 450 pixel image looks like on the Web.</p><div></div>

[mark_sirota1]

<p>Facebook downsizes everything to 604 pixels on the long side, so no point in making them bigger than that if Facebook is the destination.</p>

[john_lynch5]

<p>You all are kidding yourselves if you think that an acceptable print can't be made from a "low resolution" digital file. As a test, I took Kent's photo above into Microsoft Digital Imaging software, resized to 1500x2250 pixels, did nothing else and printed it 5x7 on cheap Kodak matte picture paper on a Canon Pixma 5000 printer (settings changed to Canon's recommended profile for this paper). The print is just as good as the photo posted; the wisps of gray hair and lines in the face are shown with clarity. I purposely used the cheapest paper I had, the printer that I normally use for documents (not photo printing) and no "tweaking" to see if the average person could produce an acceptable print from a small file with common hardware and inexpensive software. I knew I could with my "good stuff" because I do it a lot with pictures of my grandchildren that my daughter posts on the web.<br>

Kent, I have deleted the copy of your file from my computer and shredded the print.</p>

 

[Kent Shafer]

<p>Very interesting John. I'm fresh out of ideas. (I tried downsizing the picture to 150 x 225, then upsizing back to 300 x 450 for display on the Web. But the result looks pretty bad on the screen.)</p><div></div>

[JeffOwen]

<p>From my experience there is no limit to how small you need to go as there is always someone who will try to get a print from it. A lot of professionals will publish say wedding photos at about 400x600 pixels and embed a large copyright label across the image. In the UK a lot of photo printing shops will not print if there is a copyright label on the photos.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Downsizing though throws away (75% in this case) your data Kent. Upsizing throws away nothing and is an aid to the printer software. Except when you downsize, and then re-upsize, bad results! ;-)</p>

<p>To those going on and on and on about DPI and PPI -- forget it! the ONLY thing that matter on image files are the X/Y dimensions. 800 px wide or tall images will print pretty well at 4x6 inches with very little skill.</p>

<p>Facebook, as was mentioned, is 604 px max dimension. If you are a photograher, with even barely intermediate post skills, then your Facebook images should all be resized to 604 px in the largest dimension before you post them there. Why post crap (with your name attached)? Also, ENSURE the image file size is well above 50KB but below 200KB as FB will change the filesize regardless, except for a few rare circumstance; unfortunately, like photo.net does too (in No Words and the other Forums).</p>