Refresh my memory please?

Ok, so a while back my Imac got a virus that disabled the hard drive and basicly wiped everything, long story short we had to erase the whole hard disk and reinstall everything.

Alas, the virus also wiped out my back up external HD, so any files that where not also backed up onto DVD are forever gone!

So from last year, I have a total of about 200 photos that are only in JPEGs, as thier CR2's where wiped out.

Theese files are an avarage of 4752x3168, res 240.

The file size is only 1.9mb on disk.

My memory tells me that the actual file SIZE (1.9MB) won't effect the picture quality as much as the resolution and dimensions, and as the res and dimentions are pretty good, I should still get a good size print?

Some of theese are macro photos that I want to on-sell to make large prints out of, average 16x20

Have I remembered it right, or will that small file size scew it up?


Thankyou so much, mummy brain has warped my memory!

File size is determined by several things, and will not specifically affect your print quality.

What can affect both is the level of jpeg compression that has been applied, via your jpeg Quality setting and then if you save the jpeg multiple times.

So, when you deal with the jpegs, don't open them in an editor and re-save them! If you need to work on them, it's best to convert them to a tiff (or psd) and work with that until you are actually ready to send it off to print, then save using a High Quality setting to avoid unnecessary compression.

As to your present images, only you can judge the quality for a large print size. View it on screen "blown up" to a size approximating your planned print size. In Photoshop you can do this by using the Image/Image Size function, specifying your desired dimensions, and then use the View/Print Size function. If nothing looks "bad" then one other thing you could do is crop a portion out and run a test print of a small print size. Whether you want to do that is, well, up to you!

Those jpeg files should be fine.

This is a good example of why external drives that are always connected shouldn't be a backup. Offsite backups are essential.

yeah I am backing offline atm after all that!

Thankyou..I have viewed at 100%, looks a little pixely, but when viewed at print size looks fine.

Thankyou, I thought I had it right!

At 100% everything looks pixely. It's made of pixels.