If camera has the resolution 640x480, in what size do I print photos?

Question

If my camera has the resolution of 640x480, in what size would I send my photos to be printed? a size for a photo album and which wouldn't be too big or too small

Answer 1

at that size, I'd stick to a 3.5x5...maybe a 4x6...but I think that might be pushing it a bit.

Answer 2

Hi Sally The Resize Wizard in PS7 was never the easiest thing to use so I used to ignore it and do it the other way around. In PS go to New, in the dialogue box that appears go to Presets>International Paper and from the Size drop down menu select A4. Set the Units to Inches. Now we set the resolution, there is a formula long used by professionals for this which is 1M of file size to 1 Inch of picture on the longest edge. This guarantees a good picture if you have enough pixels to start with. For this size a resolution of 206 works a treat. Note this is a minimum you can set it for any resolution higher, but and this is the important part, it can reduce picture quality with small files. Setting this value to the formula suggested gives a good picture with the minimum of interpolation, if your file is small setting the resolution higher means more interpolation, more 'invented' pixels. Whilst this dialogue box is open set the bit depth to 8bit and in the Advanced part set the Profile to sRGB. Press OK. This will open the new canvas in portrait if your picture is landscape go to Image>Rotate Canvas 90° (it doesn't matter which way). Open your image and drag it onto the canvas whilst holding the Shift Key down (this will plop it bang in the centre). Call up the Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) and holding down the shift Key (this time to maintain aspect ratio) drag the corner 'anchor points' out to cover the canvas. Press Enter, flatten and save. This is the file you send to the printer and it is guaranteed to give the best result as the number of pixels in the original allow. The resolution inside PS is PPI (pixels per inch) and this is what determine the size and quality the file will print. I see over and over on this site and others people trotting out 300 dpi as if this is some magic resolution for a decent print. DPI is dots per inch and is the PRINTERS resolution, in other words this is the resolution the printer is going to print your file at. It has NOTHING to do with print size and NOTHING to do with print quality, in fact its too good for an A4 and not good enough for a 6" X 4". Its an compromise value for quality vs print time and ink usage, its used by most print shops as kind of an industry standard. Chris

Answer 3

At 100 ppi resolution your image will print at 4.8 x 6.4 inches. This is the minimum resolution for a good print that I would recommend. If you print on a 5x7 piece of paper you will also get a nice white border at this size.

If you up the resolution to 200ppi, then your printed image will be 2.4 x 3.2 inches. This should look good.

Printing larger would not be recommended.

When you send your image, send it the way it is without changing resolution and let the print lab do that automatically when you say what size print you want. You will probably get better results.

Answer 4

If you're not too picky, and assuming the image is exposed correctly, and you don't crop at all, you can probably make a 4x6. Smaller would be better. Unless you just don't care how it looks, avoid any size larger than a 4x6.

Answer 5

Compare the resolution of your computer screen to your cameras resolution size... My computer screen is 1280x800... It's about a couple inches bigger than an 8x10 piece of paper....

Since the resolution your camera produces is 640x480, then I would suggest a 5x7 print would be close to what you'd want, without interpolation... You shouldn't print bigger than 8x10

Answer 6

At that resolution 6x4 would be acceptable.

Answer 7

this is small, so 4x6