Photo sizes

[thirdkid]

Alright, im just wondering what sizes you guys print and save your pictures.. Im wanting to print some and frame them and also save some in a certain size for future printing..

I save my pictures as 1024x xxx..

[availablelight]

you should archive the original size that came out of the camera - dont limit yourself! 1024px is tiny when youre talking prints
as a guide remember that a print at 300dpi will be less than 1/3 the size you see on screen

personally i always use RAW format and archive all my raw files along with the lightroom catalog of edits - that way i can export any size in the future or even re-edit as my tastes change

if your camera doesnt offer RAW format (i see yours does) or youre not confident to use it then shoot full size fine quality jpg and archive them for backup purposes. that way youve always got your originals

[weka2000]

RAW is the only way to go. HDD space is cheap.
I make my pics as big as I can and then let the printer reduce to fit paper size. I dont reduce the size of the photo.

[duncan]

If I'm mailing off files for family to print themselves I'll reduce pics to 1200 on the long side (they generally print off 6x4's so not much point sending any bigger)

If you're wanting to print & frame your shots then they need to be as high a resolution as possible - you can always reduce size/quality if you need but you can never make 'em bigger/better...

It took me years to get my head around shooting raw but once I did it really annoyed the crap out of me when I looked back at some of my shots in jpeg and wanted to be able to process them better.

[Moppie]

Printing everything at 300dpi is a myth.
The average person can't tell the difference between beyond about 160dpi.
An 8mp image won't go above about 8x12 at 300dpi anyway.

1600 on the long side is nice for sending off to print 6x4s or 5x7s.
The smaller file also speeds up the process as there is less to transfer to the printer.

For anything larger I send the full size JPEG and let the printer sort it out.
For large prints they will either rescale the image, or print at lower resolution and rely on the viewing distance being further away.


Otherwise I shoot RAW, and keep the RAW's.
I convert to Tiff, and keep those as 16 or 8bit if any photoshop work is needed.
I only out put to JPEG for printing, or delivery to the end user, and size them accordingly first.

[EGD]

okay, i think you have things mixed up a bit here.

printing size is not the same as your resolution. so basically, in photoshop, when you resize your file for print, u should do this:

go to Image Size, untick "Resample Image", and now change the Document size to whatever you want to print, normally for photo print out, i will set the resolution to 300 ppi (pixels per inch). this is the correct way to resize for print.

for web/internet browsin, i normally reduce the resolution to 1200 x 800 or similar and save it to JPEG in "File" -> "Save as web & device"

[thirdkid]

Cheers for all the info..might aswell keep them as raw for now till i get the hang of resizing and etc..

EGD: with the 300ppi, whats the largest you can print? biggest im wanting to print a pic out, for now, is around an A4 page to A3 page..

[EGD]

it will depends on your original shot resolution size, here is an example:

say, my D700 when shootin in raw uncompress, it will generate a file size of 4256 x 2832 pixels per photo.

in photoshop CS4 i go in to "Image Size" -> Untick "Resample Iamge" -> change the "Resolution" to 300 ppl (pixel per inch), the Biggest file i can print without any enlargement will be 14.187 x 9.44 inches.

now, if i change the resolution to 240 ppi, then my biggest printin size without enlarge will become 17.73 x 11.8 inches (which is huge).

and if i resize the pixel down to 1200 x 800 pixel, and still have a resolution of 300 ppi, now the biggest printing size without enlargement will be 4 x 2.662 inches.

hope this help, its a bit confusing but is essential to learn, you might want to find a book/link to read on this if you want to get to the bottom of this.

[thirdkid]

ohhh ok..cheers for that info..i get it now