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Ready to turn your digital images into stunning prints? Understanding photo print sizes and resolutions is crucial for ensuring your images look their best on paper. This guide provides essential insights into calculating optimal print sizes and maintaining quality.
1. Ensure image resolutions meet minimum requirements.
2. Upload full-resolution images to your print lab.
3. Confirm correct aspect ratios for your prints.
4. Select a suitable paper type for your photos.
Utilise our Photo Print Size Calculator to determine the ideal dimensions for your prints. Input your photo's pixel dimensions, select an aspect ratio, and specify your desired print quality. The calculator will deliver results that include required megapixels and minimum viewing distances, helping you to create prints that impress.
Calculate optimal print sizes, required megapixels, and viewing distances based on your photo's resolution, aspect ratio, and desired quality.
Calculate optimal print sizes based on your photo's resolution and aspect ratio
| Print Size | Dimensions | Aspect Ratio | Required MP | Viewing Distance | Quality |
|---|
Enter your image dimensions in pixels and the resolution (DPI/PPI)
Enter your desired physical dimensions and the target resolution (DPI/PPI)
Determine the effective DPI and print quality for your image at a specific print size
Note: This is an uncompressed file size estimate. Actual file sizes will vary based on the image format and compression used.
Physical Size = Pixels ÷ Resolution
Example: 3000 pixels ÷ 300 DPI = 10 inches
Pixels = Physical Size × Resolution
Example: 10 inches × 300 DPI = 3000 pixels
Megapixels = (Width in pixels × Height in pixels) ÷ 1,000,000
Example: (3000 × 2000) ÷ 1,000,000 = 6 MP
File Size (bits) = Width × Height × Color Depth
File Size (bytes) = File Size (bits) ÷ 8
Example: 3000 × 2000 × 24 ÷ 8 = 18,000,000 bytes = 17.2 MB
Minimum Viewing Distance ≈ Diagonal Size × 2
Example: For a 16×20" print, minimum viewing distance ≈ 25.6 inches
1 inch = 2.54 cm = 25.4 mm
1 cm = 0.3937 inches = 10 mm
1 mm = 0.03937 inches = 0.1 cm
The Photo and Print Size Calculator is a user-friendly tool designed to help photographers and print enthusiasts determine the optimal print sizes for their digital images.
To use it, simply input your photo's width and height in pixels, select your desired aspect ratio (or keep the original), and choose your preferred print quality.
The calculator will then display the maximum print size for your image and provide a detailed table of common print sizes, along with information on required megapixels, minimum viewing distances, and whether your image is suitable for each size.
This tool is invaluable for ensuring your prints maintain the best possible quality and for understanding how different aspect ratios might affect your image. You can easily calculate, reset, and even print the results for future reference.
This is especially a truism when it comes to the RPS. I often joke about the judges smelling the ink on the paper and waxing lyrical about paper choices more than the photograph itself. Joking aside, the assessment for any panel quite rightly relies on evidence that the photographer (applicant) also understands, and presents, the images to a professional and competent standard. This photo sizing guide is aimed at those who want to ensure the print quality matches the efforts made in making the image and then presenting it in print.
The printing part (sharing) of the panel has equal importance to the design (creative/framing), shoot (technical execution), enhance (editing and presentation) as the first stage of showing what the photographer sees and interprets.
Nowadays, few people choose to print images as it’s so much easier to share electronically through social media and photo websites. As such, many photographers don’t have the knowledge and understanding of print resolution, aspect ratios, mounting, paper choice and the plethora of challenges that come with making the print. In fairness, even as professional from the digital age, I must work things out each time I go to print too, though I have done enough exhibitions and other print required tasks to have a reasonable understanding.
“The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” Ansel Adams
My digital photography interpretation of Ansel's quote is “the digital file is the score, and the print is the performance.”
Given that I have many clients, on various courses, and other events wishing to create prints, I felt a guide to the considerations and technicalities would be helpful.
So, what about aspect ratios? In its simplest form, a print aspect ratio is simply a measurement of its width compared to its height, in the form of a ratio. For example, a full frame image taken from a SLR camera, without any cropping, is in the ratio 3:2. Or expressed another way, the width of the image is 1.5 times the height of the image.
How does aspect ratios relate to cropping? The image below is a full frame 3:2 image. If we printed this as a 6×4” print, it would not need cropping but what if we wanted this image in another common print format – a 10×8”?
This would, unfortunately, mean cropping part of the image –possibly an important part of the composition. The reason is that although the 10×8” print is significantly larger than a 6×4”, its aspect ratio is 5:4. In another word, the larger 10×8” print’s aspect ratio is squarer.
Image Aspect Ratio
What about other common small print formats – the 7×5? It’s are more elongated than the 10×8” but squarer than the 6×4”. If this seems more confusing, think of in terms of the width as a multiple of the height (or just refer to this table below!).
Remember the aspect ratio has nothing to do with the quality and size of the photo it is just the shape of the rectangle – viewing area.
Image Size Ratio
We are all familiar with standard paper sizes when it comes to office and home printers. However, the camera doesn’t naturally conform to those standard dimensions when we are printing a photo (uncropped) from a digital SLR camera.
The camera photo dimensions (aspect ratio) are based on the sensor or film size, so do not fit the page size easily or equally (the same amount of white space around the photo)
Therefore, we have to convert image size to fit standard paper sizes to fill as much of the paper area without cropping the image. Here you can see that the paper aspect ratios do not align perfectly to image aspect ratios. Nearly all the paper sizes in the table below have an aspect ratio of 1.41 which is the closet match to 7 x 5 image aspect ratio (1.4)
Paper sizes and ratio
If the calculation of paper size and image sizes was not already complicated enough, we also need to consider image resolution. Meaning acceptably sharp at “normal viewing distances”.
Acceptably sharp is determined by the viewing distance and medium the image is presented on. Assuming you are printing images for viewing rather than seeing on as a projected image (or Mobile device and computer) then a viewing distance of 1-3 feet (within arm’s length) is considered the normal range for determining sharpness and details of the print.
How do you calculate minimum viewing distance?
A generally accepted rule of thumb is that an appropriate minimum print viewing distance is simply the diagonal length of an image multiplied by 1.5
For example, a 36" x 54" image would have a diagonal length of about 64.9". Multiplying 64.9" by 1.5 results in a viewing distance of about 97.3" or 8.1 feet
Viewing distance for photographs
Viewing Distances
In addition to this the PPI needs to be sufficient to render the image sharp at that viewing distance and size of image
PPI stands for “pixels per inch.” The more pixels per inch, the higher the image resolution. You can see from the chart, below, that PPI, or resolution, is inversely related to the output size and viewing distance. The larger your output AND greater your viewing distance, the fewer pixels per inch that are needed in order to ensure sharp appearance.
Therefore, the image resolution must be sufficient in megapixels to ensure you can produce a high-quality print at 200 PPI for minimal, and 300 PPI for high quality as close viewing distance and less than 200 PPI when viewing from greater distances.
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of the number of pixels in a digital image, which affects the quality of a printed image. A higher PPI generally results in a higher quality print.
300 PPI: A good choice for high-quality prints, such as photos for magazines or brochures
180–240 PPI: A common choice for non-commercial use or smaller designs
How PPI affects print quality
A higher PPI means more pixels per inch, so each pixel can be printed at a higher resolution
This results in sharper images and smoother gradients
For small format prints, such as brochures or booklets, 300 PPI is recommended
For large format prints, such as line images, 200 PPI is recommended
For photographic images on canvas, 100 PPI is recommended
Higher PPI also means more detailed and crisp images on a display. Modern smartphones and high-end monitors often have very high PPI ratings
Formula:
Print resolution and PPI
The maths involved to come up with that size print is to first divide the number of pixels in the width of the file by the 200 DPI. (2,000/200=10).
Next, divide the number of pixels in the height of the file by 200. (1600/200=8). So, there you have it. A file size of 2,000 pixels X 1600 pixels can be printed to make a good quality 10 X 8 photo when printed at 200 DPI.
If you decide to make a print at 300DPI from the same image file, you will have a print with better resolution. However, the maximum size for a quality print will be smaller.
The maths would be.... 2,000/300=6.8. Next, 1,600/300=5.3. So, if you round the numbers out, the maximum standard size for that print will be about 7 X 5.
The key connection to viewing distance here is that due to the optics of the human eye, a print that is 3x farther away requires exactly 3x less resolution to maintain the same visible quality!
So, in the case of the 36" x 54" image, having 1/3 of the resolution at 100 PPI is equally compensated for by the 3x longer viewing distance.
Though printing a fine art photograph at 100 PPI is considered completely unacceptable to some, if a photographer intends for a large print to only be viewed from 8 feet away or more, this is reasonable.
Viewing distance and resolution of photograph
Takeaway - 300 PPI for a 10" x 14" is the largest print size generally felt as comfortably sharp when viewing at arm's length, at which point 300 PPI is just beyond the capabilities of the human eye. Smaller than this then 300 PPI is ideally required, larger than this then 200 PPI or less is acceptable at the appropriate viewing distance.
The table below shows the ideal resolution of the image required at 300 PPI to be printed at a size of approximately A4 (8.3 x 11.7 in). This is the expected minimum size for RPS panels.
The mount sizes shown is 16 x 12 in. Approx. A3 size
Picture A3 paper with an A4 Cut-out/Window centred on the A3 to get an idea of image space and mount space.
A3 Mount with A4 Cut-out/Window
To calculate the size of the image space for any given aspect ratio, (thus avoiding any cropping) and leave 4 inches between the image border and mount border,
1. specify the target longest edge size of the image
2. divided by the aspect ratio longest side
3. to give you a scaling factor of nn
4. then multiple the smaller sides aspect ratio by nn to calculate the short dimension.
Example when wanting a print size of around 12 inches on the longest side with an image in 2:3 aspect ratio
1. 12 inches
2. Divided by 3 (longest edge aspect ratio) = 4
3. 4 is the scaling factor (nn)
4. 2 x 4 (2 is the shortest side aspect ratio, 4 is nn factor) = 8
Result is 8 x 12 inches
To calculate the image resolution and megapixels for the image dimensions.
1. Longest edge multiplied by 300 (300 being PPI)
2. Shortest edge multiplied by 300
Result: Pixel Dimensions
Next multiple the x & y dimensions to calculate the Megapixels needed for 300 PPI.
Example:
2:3 aspect ratio printed at 8 x 12 inches.
1. 12 x 300 = 3,600
2. 8 x 300 = 2,400
Result pixel dimensions 2,400 x 3,600
Megapixels = 2,400 x 3,600 = 8.64 million
I recommend a 16 x 12 inches mount (Approx. A3) with Max photo width of 12 inches (Approx. A4 image size) as below:
Image size calculation for mount size
There is a large choice of papers when it comes to fine art prints. The choice of paper is largely a personal one and it does depend on what paper suits a particular image.
For example, portraits print well on Permajet Matt Plus and landscapes print well on Hahnemuhle – Bamboo. Just my opinion but it is worth getting some test prints on various papers before committing to a final choice. Remember if you are putting a body of work/panel together its strongly advised to stick to one paper for all the images in that panel/exhibition/body of work to keep the coherence.
One Vision Imaging Print Lab Paper Choices for fine art prints
Rather than ordering individual prints on various papers, I create a combined image file with all the images on one sheet as shown below:
test print with multiple images on one pape
This can be done simply in Lightroom using the print module as follows:
Set page size to A3 in Page Set-up.
Then create a custom contact sheet with the following dimensions:
contact sheet layout for 10 panel images
Print to JPG file rather than printer in Lightroom:
This will produce and A3 Size sheet as a single jpg file at high resolution enough for getting your panel/body of work printed on various papers to compare. You can also do this via Photoshop too if you are comfortable with placing images onto a new A3 white canvas.
Print to JPG file
This will produce and A3 Size sheet as a single jpg file at high resolution enough for getting your panel/body of work printed on various papers to compare. You can also do this via Photoshop too if you are comfortable with placing images onto a new A3 white canvas.
All images are at sufficient resolution/Megapixels to meet the requirements of 300 PPI for the size of print.
You have uploaded full-resolution JPGs or Tiff Files to the print lab with a standard colour profile – Adobe RGB or SRGB
All images have been cropped to standard aspect ratios, OR you have calculated the dimensions for each image size and mount size with cut-out/window.
You have chosen a fine art paper that works for the whole collection/panel.
I recommend (without any commission or prejudice) One Vision Imaging Limited for all my fine art prints. The print quality and production are always first class and they have excellent customer service so will be more than happy to help you through the process if my guide is beyond what you can process easily.
You first need to register on their site and create a profile so that you can upload your images into a collection and then order prints, framed, unframed or mounted accordingly. Create a profile with One Vision Imaging.
I would really welcome your comments, questions, debates or any engagement on this post on my Photo Sizing Guide, so please feel more than welcome to send me a message
Remember to visit my photography blog page for free tips, information, advice and the latest offers.
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