Resolution &
Print Size
by J. Ramón Palacios
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WHAT SIZE
IMAGE FOR WHAT STANDARD SIZES OF PRINT PAPER
Pro labs will rather work with 300ppi
resolution images. But the resulting print sizes from scans
or digital camera images in the table in the preceeding page
are not standard. What to do? Below the optimal sizes of images.
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| Building blocks of
a digital darkroom REFERENCE TABLE FOR BEST IMAGE SIZE
FOR STANDARD PRINT SIZES
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| Image size in Pixels
(Virtual Size of Image) |
Mpixel
rating |
Print size (inches)
at 300ppi |
| . |
|
|
| 1,050 x 1,500 |
1.575 |
3.5 x 5 |
| 1,200 x 1,800 |
2.160 |
4 x 6 |
| 1,500 x 2,100 |
3.150 |
5 x 7 |
| 1,800
x 2,400 |
4.320 |
6
x 8 |
| 1,800 x 2,550 |
4.590 |
6 x 8.5 |
| 2,400 x 3,000 |
7.200 |
8 x 10 |
| 2,400 x 3,600 |
8.640 |
8 x 12 |
| 3,300 x 4,200 |
13.860 |
11 x 14 |
| 4,800 x 6,000 |
28.800 |
16 x 20 |
| 6,000 x 7,200 |
43.200 |
20 x 24 |
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This means you have to crop your
images to conform to these pixel dimensions and
maybe resize them (Bicubic resampling, constraining
proportions) if too big or a little too small for
a standard print size. An image editor is of course
required; Photoshop is the photo industry standard.
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For
a fast workflow when dealing with several images this is what
I do:
I.
File > New - Assigning it a standard size, lets say 1,500
x 2,100 pixels at 300ppi for a 5x7 inches vertical print.
Notice
this is a 9 Mpixels image size. If your digital camera has
6 Mpixels, don't worry, remember the table is for scanned
film images where half of that is spent on grain. So for a
9 Mpixels images you need in theory just half or 4.5 Mpixels,
but the closer you are to 9 (in this case), the better; of
course.
II.
File > Open - Your file. Check its proportions.
(I
have a 29Mpixels image because that's the resolution of my
scanner)
III.
Resize image and crop if needed as close as possible to the
size of the New file.
IV.
Copy and paste the resized image on top of the New file. And
that's that, just remember to flaten layers and rename the
file before saving.
There
are other ways to do this of course and for really large volume
you can always resort to the:
File > Automate > Batch
options.
Have
a great time! 
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