Professional photogs-what size and dpi do you save your photos for clients?

I did 2 photo shoots for friends this last week. I want to edit about 30 of the photos and give them to them on cd. I was wondering, when I save them in Photoshop, what size and dpi should I save the files?

Depends if they plan to print them, then they should be at 300DPI at least.

Size? again depends on how big they plan the prints to be.

here's a chart: http://www.design215.c​om/toolbox/megapixels.​php

They definitely do plan to print them.

I am not sure what size they intend to print them. I'd think probably not bigger than an 8x10.

I'm just looking for some general guidelines about what you would do if you were giving a client a cd of all the photos you took.

Printing FAQ

If you save your images at 3000x2400 pixels, it gives your clients the option of printing 10"x8" at a resolution of 300ppi. If they want to print bigger than that, then they will have to lower the ppi count accordingly.

If your images are bigger than 3000x2400 then I would save them in their native resolution, which gives your clients more options with regard to print size and associated printing resolutions.

DPI doesnt matter. It's an arbitrarily embedded number.

cdifoto wrote in post #6698343
DPI doesnt matter. It's an arbitrarily embedded number.

Oops! I meant ppi not dpi.

Doesn't make any difference. Cdifoto's point is that unless you know the inches, pixels or dots per inch is a meaningless number.

kerry0621 wrote in post #6699973
Oops! I meant ppi not dpi.

Oh my bad. In that case:

PPI doesnt matter. It's an arbitrarily embedded number.

I give customers whatever resolution comes out of the RAW converter, and I erase any ppi value and all other EXIF using the free software EXIFer.

cdifoto wrote in post #6702103
Oh my bad. In that case:

PPI doesnt matter. It's an arbitrarily embedded number.

Thanks for your help. In case you didn't see my signature, I am new at this and trying to learn.

I guess I am confused then because there is a difference between photos at 72 ppi and 300ppi. I can see the difference when I post them to the web and try to enlarge them, and when I print out larger pictures when the original file was only 72 ppi. Can someone explain how ppi is an arbitrary number?

kerry0621 wrote in post #6703554
I guess I am confused then because there is a difference between photos at 72 ppi and 300ppi.?

If you see a difference at 72 and 300 ppi then you've changed more than ppi. The only important measure is number of pixels. If the pixel dimensions of two images are the same, they will display the same regardless of the arbitrary dpi/ppi setting.

Bodog wrote in post #6704003
If you see a difference at 72 and 300 ppi then you've changed more than ppi.

This brings me back to my original question. I wanted to know what resolution to save the files to a cd. Once I give them the CD, I won't know what sizes they want to print.

I wanted to know what resolution would give them the best images at a variety of sizes. If I give them a CD where all the files are saved at 72 ppi, then they print out 8x10 images, they will not be good quality. Isn't that right, or am I still confused? If that is the case, then I don't see how you can say that ppi is meaningless.

kerry0621 wrote in post #6703554
Thanks for your help. In case you didn't see my signature, I am new at this and trying to learn.

I guess I am confused then because there is a difference between photos at 72 ppi and 300ppi. I can see the difference when I post them to the web and try to enlarge them, and when I print out larger pictures when the original file was only 72 ppi. Can someone explain how ppi is an arbitrary number?

I know. I love to be smart-assed. It keeps me regular. Like fibre for old folks.

It's the pixel dimensions that matter. The resulting DPI/PPI is simply the pixel dimensions divided by the print size. It's just a calculation. Kind of like "3x zoom" on a lens. Doesn't mean squat if you don't know the wide mm and the long mm since it's just the long end divided by the short end. In other words, a 70-210mm lens is 3x but so is a 10-30mm lens. Both are 3x but they're completely different lenses. A 3000x2000 image can have 72PPI embedded into the file, or it can have 3000000PPI embedded into the file. It's still 3000x2000 pixels and they will look the same printed at the same size.

Make sense?

cdifoto wrote in post #6704083
A 3000x2000 image can have 72PPI embedded into the file, or it can have 3000000PPI embedded into the file. It's still 3000x2000 pixels and they will look the same printed at the same size.

Make sense?

I think it is starting to make sense It think the part that I understand is that they will look the same when printed at the same size. What I was worried about was if I saved it a certain way, and then they wanted to enlarge the pictures.

I guess what I really want to know is what I should do to my photos when I edit and save them in Photoshop. Sometimes I crop the photos and then I am not sure how to save them. When I go to Image size in Photoshop it says the existing size is 3888x2592 and resolution is 72 pixels/inch. Do I just leave it like that?

Thanks for all the help!