How big of photos do newspapers usually want?

[timmyquest]

I went on google, i went here...couldnt find an answear either place.

I got about 7 baseball photos i wana send in to my local paper (no one else was there with a camera, i might as well try) but when zipped they are 41mb in size, i highly doubt they'd bother.

[PhotosGuy]

Why not just call the editor & ask him? Editors are people, too.

[timmyquest]

Why not just call the editor & ask him? Editors are people, too.

I did call, no one answeared, the sooner i get them the photos, the better.

[PhotosGuy]

There's no one at your "local paper"? Is it a weekly, or what? Are you sure that it's the right phone #?
If no one is there, what's the rush to get the pics to an empty office?

[timmyquest]

There's no one at your "local paper"? Is it a weekly, or what? Are you sure that it's the right phone #?
If no one is there, what's the rush to get the pics to an empty office?

I found it odd as well, they are infact a weekly paper as far as i know, i just emailed them 800x533's explaining i wasnt sure what they wanted and that if they wanted them i'd be glad to send larger versions.

[IndyJeff]

Usually a paper will want as big a file as they can get so they can see the detail in the shot. At the very least, send an 8x10 print size file.

[PhotosGuy]

I come from a small town with a weekly, too. The 2 owners were always out selling ads & getting info for the paper.
Good luck!

[Tom W]

7 photos, 41 megs - are they JPEG's? That's some pretty large files.

[evilenglishman]

bear in mind that for newsprint the quality is much lower than a photographic print so you shouldnt need to send them Huge files.
You need to ask them what dpi they want. It should be less than half of magazine print @ 300dpi

[jimtfoto]

I work for a newspaper and our general guidelines to such enquiries are ... send it in at least 8x10 @200 dpi.

[PhotosGuy]

our general guidelines to such enquiries are ... send it in at least 8x10 @200 dpi.
The higher resolution gives them some cropping leeway, if they need it. That doesn't make it a better pic but it does allow them to cram it into an available space. (You probably won't like what they do to it!)
:wink:

[Pekka]

Send them small ones for evaluation.

For final prints, just resize originals (I assume they are 6mp) something like 175% and then set dpi to 300 (without resizing) --- this is what I call "make even clueless AD happy" -action. Make sure that color space is sRGB or "unprofiled".

If you use RAW/C1 just output to 300 dpi sRGB JPEG and don't resize. I've done full page newspaper cover image directly from C1 output file and it looked great.

For exact size you must know their LPI. See http://www.graphic-design.com/Photoshop/Tips/85-lpi.html

[cecilc]

When I submit photos to our local daily paper, I e-mail the sports editor a level 10 jpg at 5x7 at 200 ppi. The file size on that kind of image varies between 900 KB to 1200 KB. And that's about the "size" (both dimension wise and byte size) that they tell me they prefer.

I imagine most papers differ in specifics in what they expect with photo submittals, but the 200 ppi should pretty much be a constant for newsprint.