What resolution?

[BThunderW]

This might have been covered before. I have a DRebel XT (8MP) and I would like to develop some 10x8's. Some of the pictures I have a quite heavily cropped. What's the minimum resolution that will still look good on a 10x8?

Cheers,

Tom

[dpurslow]

Tom, dont know the camera but what I would say is no matter what camera you have, my advice is always soot at your MAXIMUM rez, why with the cost of memory so low risk capturing a great image and not being able to do that much with it, go big and shoot bigger !

[ErikAnderson]

This might have been covered before. I have a DRebel XT (8MP) and I would like to develop some 10x8's. Some of the pictures I have a quite heavily cropped. What's the minimum resolution that will still look good on a 10x8?

Cheers,

Tom

I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking how small of a crop will still make a good 8x10?

[BThunderW]

Yes. If I take a picture at 8mp resolution, how much of it can be cropped while still retaining enough detail for a good 8x10. Sorry if I wasn't being clear enough.

Cheers,

Tom

[tim]

250ppi or above is considered photographic quality.

[pttenn]

Dpurslow--how do you go about getting a high resolution if you have your camera set on the highest quality short of RAW--and the picture resolution shows as 180 or so??? Is there a way to change it to 300,say??

[ghosh]

Tim,
Lets say I have picture taken with a 3.1 MP camera. I have cropped some part of it. Now at this time how do I check if I have 250 PPI or less?

[Brand_X]

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-pixel.htm

read up on it. your rez and how many PPI you print are two diffrent thing. Printing at 300 PPI will make a smaller print than printing at 200 PPI. Your camera dosent use PPI or DPI because you can resize the picture however you see fit. its digital not physical. when you print you will have to select the PPI you want and it will cram that many pixels into each inch therefor shrinking or enlarging your total print size

[sydneyguy30]

when u open photshop

the pictures default of 72 dpi


u said 250dpi or above


does this mean, in order to get a high quailty PRINTED picture

u shopuld actually change the dpi from its default 72
to xsay 250 or 300

250ppi or above is considered photographic quality.

[Fureinku]

8x10 @ 300 dpi = 2400x3000 dpi = roughly 7 mp

Yes you should change it to 250 dpi, or 300 dpi, but that really depends on the original file and the resulting file, if you are starting with an untouched file and send it to print, and select fit to page, then you dont have to worry about anything, the printer will simply take your existing pixels, and cram as many as it takes to make an 8 inch, or a 10 inch line

resampling an image is a whole different story

but if you simply crop an image, lets say your selection was 600 pixels wide by 800 pixels tall, and convert it to 300dpi for printing, at 100%, your print will be 2 inches by 2.66 inches

so.. if you need to crop the image, then resample it for an 8x10 file

EDIT: i think most printers print at 150 dpi(for photo printers, commercial printers usually around 133, so 250 ppi works for them as tim stated), or basically divided your PPI by two, so a 600x800 image at 300 ppi would print 4x5 inches.. ugh confusing, someone help me

Eh.. what am i doing here im not a pro, ill leave

[Brand_X]

ok take your picture at the highest rez your camera will alow. after that changing the dpi will do nothing to improve the picture. For instance say your picture in this spot has one red pixel quadupleing it will make that same area have 4 red pixels and will look no diffrent. Its the printer that matters the most when making the prints.

you cant add more pixels to an existing picture and make it look sharper.

you have a 3MP picture you want to make a 300 PPI print you can only make a 7.1 x 4.7 print without the picture "zooming" or "stretching" to cover the extra space or your photo paper and wasting the extra pixels.

DPI isnt an accurate way mo measure quality because does it take 3 dots to make a pixel or does it take 6 dots, its diffrent for diffrent printers.

A dot is a dot is a dot it can be any size depending on the printer. A pixel is an actual area of color. if you zoom way into a picture where everything look like squares of color, each square of color is a pixel. If you take a crop at 30 x 30 when you are zoomed in and try and make a 300 x 300 print then its the same pictur but now there are instead of one pixel representing that color you now have 100 squares or pixels representing that same color. they are the same color inside that original square so it still looks the same.

when buying a printer look at the ppi not the dpi. because a lot of printer will use more dpi to make it look like it can print more colors with less actual colors of ink cartridges.

a cheep printer may boast a high dpi but only actualy print with 4 colors. a nice printer may print with less dpi but use 8 colors. ppi is what matters the most.

i keep getting inturuped while typing tis so it may seem a little broken due to my loss of what i was thinking about. sorry :p

[Brand_X]

8x10 @ 300 dpi = 2400x3000 dpi = roughly 7 mp
you cant do that math unless you know how many dots equal 1 pixel

[amonline]

Usually, 240dpi/resolution is adequate enough for good results or even client 'professional' printing. (although I'd still recommend 300 if possible) However, if this is just for images around the house, most of the time you can go as low as even 96. (expect to lose your sharpness if you try to max the size to say, 8x10)

[sydneyguy30]

im sorry

im still confused

....

it makes sense in a way what is being said...but

i am talking about

photoshop specifically

in the picture below it shows 72 something

72 resolution

in this ection

some people have said to type in

300 instead

then press save

instead of the default 72

.

ofcourse, u never reduce the size of the original file from your camera in order to keep best quality....

but

my question is

when i save it as a jpeg and takle it to kodak and its saved as 300 resoltion

will my image actually be better than if i save it at 72

(based on a normal 4X6

or 5X7





Usually, 240dpi/resolution is adequate enough for good results or even client 'professional' printing. (although I'd still recommend 300 if possible) However, if this is just for images around the house, most of the time you can go as low as even 96. (expect to lose your sharpness if you try to max the size to say, 8x10)

[Brand_X]

sydneyguy30, changing that will not help. Your pictue is already a set number of pixels and trying to add more wil just make the file bigger. Your image will still look the same.

if you want 10 x 8's you will need to have a pictue of atleast 4 MP or about 2304 × 1728 pixels if its going to be printed at 200ppi. the less ppi you want the larger you make the print. The higher the ppi you want the smaller the print.

I think that is what you are looking for.

also if you shoot raw you can give it up to a native 170ppi if you use the raw processing software that comes with your camera.

[sydneyguy30]

hmmm ik nhda know what u mean

.

my camera is 10 megapixles

if i just press save as auto save

is this ok

or

if i want to have complete highest quality possibel on my 6X4 print

do i leave the ppi or change it to 300

.

are u saying that i only need to change to ppi to say 300 if i am going to blow the picture up?

sydneyguy30, changing that will not help. Your pictue is already a set number of pixels and trying to add more wil just make the file bigger. Your image will still look the same.

if you want 10 x 8's you will need to have a pictue of atleast 4 MP or about 2304 × 1728 pixels if its going to be printed at 200ppi. the less ppi you want the larger you make the print. The higher the ppi you want the smaller the print.

I think that is what you are looking for.

also if you shoot raw you can give it up to a native 170ppi if you use the raw processing software that comes with your camera.

[Brand_X]

ok make your crop then look and see how many pixels it has horizontaly and verticly if it is greater than 2304 × 1728 it will make a good print for your 10 x 8's at 200ppi. When they make the prints they set the ppi and they dont add or subtract from what your picture has they just size the image to make the actual number of pixels meet 200ppi. I have never taken my prints to a print shop before so i dont know but you can ask if they can make it a 10 x 8 at 200ppi without losing quality. They should then look at the file and see if it has enough pixels to do without losing quality and like i said if it is more than 2304 × 1728 they should say yes.

If they say no then ask whats wrong with the dimentions. You may not have a 3:2 crop ad its the wrong dimentions (little to wide, little to tall... whatever) then they shoudl still be able to make the print but it will have a white boarder on the sides or on the top. They can even crop the original for you with your help to let them know what you want out of it and make it the right dimention but again it has to meet the 2304 × 1728 size limit.

Crop your picture and let me know what its rez is in the normal format. px Hight x px Wide and i will let you know if it can make the print.


FYI
the higher your pixel count the larger the image but adding more pixels with photoshop will not make it actualy higher quality. When your Digic II processor converts the raw picture into a jpg in gives it 72ppi (actualy loses quality even on L fine) if you convert your own raw files with the software that came with it you can give it up to 170ppi befor your adding extra useless pixels.

[Brand_X]

if there is a flaw in my reasoning then please someone let me know!

I dont want to be missleading.

[Fureinku]

you cant do that math unless you know how many dots equal 1 pixel

isnt it about 2 pixels per dot? isnt it why you usually make a document at double the ppi then the printer printing it at 150 dpi? or 250ish ppi for a 133 dpi printer?

[TeeJay]

Ok, my understanding has always been, if I have a file of a size 2400 x 1800, and have it printed at a lab (who only print @ 300dpi), it will print to a maximum size of 8 x 6 inches.

Now if I take that file in Photoshop, I can actauly "crop" it to a "larger" dimension (by simply setting the dimensions to 15" x 10") that then measures 3000 x 2400?

What is happening there then, is Photoshop resampling to achieve a larger-than-life size?

[Fureinku]

yes, when you have resampling selected, photoshop will take what you input for resolution, 300 ppi, and the dimensions you want, 15x10, and resample the image to have enough pixels to fill that image at that resolution

[TeeJay]

Ahh, I honestly didn't realise the tool had a "resample" option. Thanks, I'll check it again tomorrow.

[Fureinku]

Image/Image Size..

Select constrain proportions and select resample to resample, also select scale styles if you have any layer styles

[Brand_X]

yes your pixels are what you have nothing more nothing less.changing the ppi in ps just adjusts the size on the screen. But increasing the ppi on paper and trying to keep the same size will lose quality.

resampeling to increase the size of the pictue will degrade the quality.