Photo Size

[PnwGuy]

I shoot jpgs on the Large Fine setting. What would be the recommended size for general printing purposes? Not necessarliy the shooting size, but the size when given to someone else? I took some shots of a friend's children yesterday and then emailed them to her. When I was resizing them I found I really had no idea which size to save them in order to email them yet still maintain quality printing. I think I saved them 11x17. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hopefully one day I'll be able to answer a few questions on here rather than just asking them. :D

[Nicole]

I shoot jpgs on the Large Fine setting. What would be the recommended size for general printing purposes?

For printing purposes, true photographic quality is 300ppi (pixels per inch) but you may be able to go as low as 200ppi for printing if you don't mind a potential drop in quality.

Based on your equipment, you would probably be able to print anywhere up to approx 9"x13" at 300ppi or 13"x19" at 200ppi.

I would also suggest reading this Digital Photography Printing Guide (http://www.design215.com/toolbox/print_guide.php) to get a better idea of what all this means.

When I was resizing them I found I really had no idea which size to save them in order to email them yet still maintain quality printing. I think I saved them 11x17. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Not sure what program you're using to edit / save your photos, but I would basically recommend saving them as the largest jpg you feel comfortable e-mailing to the person (based on your internet connection and theirs) and ensure that the ppi is between 200-300.

In Photoshop Elements (PSE), you can do this by going to Image -> Resize -> Image Size.
When the dialog box comes up, play around with the resolution numbers (pixels/inch) and the document height and width.
Make sure that the boxes for "Constrain Proportions" and "Resample Image" are marked.

Hopefully this will give you some sort of starting point. I'm afraid the answer may have been less than 100% clear though.

[PnwGuy]

...Hopefully this will give you some sort of starting point. I'm afraid the answer may have been less than 100% clear though.

Nicole, thank you, I appreciate the info. It DOES give me something to work with. I've been using the trial version of PSE which expired a couple of days ago. My retail copy should arrive later this week and I'll experiement with your suggestions. Thanks again!

[hitkaiser]

Have you tried using picasa? (http://picasa.google.com), it's so simple...

You can send out photos by email directly from the program, and in settings you can choose to resize your emailed photos to a certain resolution (I find 1024x to be the best) or leave them as original.. good thing is you dont have to fumble around resizing images all the time, it does it all for you on the go without leaving multiple copies of images everywhere

[henryscat]

If you want to enlarge your photos with minimal quality loss, try the Photoshop add-on called GENUINE FRACTALS.

It is SO much better for enlarging than Photoshop alone.

[RainPacket]

For what it's worth, I shoot with the XTi, but I shoot RAW. I've been able to do 16"x20" prints just fine, which should be more than large enough for anything you'll ever need. This shot, for instance, would print large just fine... just view the original full size over on Flickr:

http://static.flickr.com/124/319420138_071708cef6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/packet/319420138/)