whats the best size, and easiest for buyers

Netgarden

Hi, I have a ton of surfing photos from the HB Open, and before I start the uploading process for purchasing them, what size is best for selling? It seems for something like surfing, most want larger photos, poster type. Normally I set it for 200DPI and manage around 10x15 or larger, not much cropping. But yet some are further away, so I can't get much more than 8.5x11. Does smugmug interpolate photos that are ordered larger than what we upload? Any suggestions as to lg white borders, or ratio? Some photos look better wider than 14x11. Best way to do that? thnks for pointing me in the right direction...sorry I can't sit here and read for long periods.

gluwater

Netgarden wrote:

Hi, I have a ton of surfing photos from the HB Open, and before I start the uploading process for purchasing them, what size is best for selling? It seems for something like surfing, most want larger photos, poster type. Normally I set it for 200DPI and manage around 10x15 or larger, not much cropping. But yet some are further away, so I can't get much more than 8.5x11. Does smugmug interpolate photos that are ordered larger than what we upload? Any suggestions as to lg white borders, or ratio? Some photos look better wider than 14x11. Best way to do that? thnks for pointing me in the right direction...sorry I can't sit here and read for long periods.

Here's the list of minimum resolution per print size. Just make sure your files are at least as big as the list says and the printer will do the rest.
http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality

Netgarden

gluwater wrote:

Here's the list of minimum resolution per print size. Just make sure your files are at least as big as the list says and the printer will do the rest.
http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality

thanx for the help, good info!

Another question, is 8.5x11 photo- for example- around [EMAIL="1600x1250@200dpi"]1600x1250@200dpi[/EMAIL] doable in a 10x15 for buyers, with no problems? In other words I don't want to make them too small and have problems with sizes. If I choose 10x15, which I could most the time to make them, will everyone have to crop all the time? I want to start out uncomplicated for the buyers and not have huge changes down the line. My previous print sizes worked well for me at home but they were all different sizes, and I printed accordingly. Not a problem here? thnx

Netgarden

Can anyone answer this also? thnx I need to know before doing a ton of photos the best size to upload for choices up to 10x15, or should I pick a more standard ratio?-
Another question, is 8.5x11 photo- for example- around 1600x1250@200dpi doable in a 10x15 for buyers, with no problems? In other words I don't want to make them too small and have problems with sizes. If I choose 10x15, which I could most the time to make them, will everyone have to crop all the time? I want to start out uncomplicated for the buyers and not have huge changes down the line. My previous print sizes worked well for me at home but they were all different sizes, and I printed accordingly. Not a problem here? thnx

gluwater

Netgarden wrote:

Can anyone answer this also? thnx I need to know before doing a ton of photos the best size to upload for choices up to 10x15, or should I pick a more standard ratio?-
Another question, is 8.5x11 photo- for example- around 1600x1250@200dpi doable in a 10x15 for buyers, with no problems? In other words I don't want to make them too small and have problems with sizes. If I choose 10x15, which I could most the time to make them, will everyone have to crop all the time? I want to start out uncomplicated for the buyers and not have huge changes down the line. My previous print sizes worked well for me at home but they were all different sizes, and I printed accordingly. Not a problem here? thnx

It all depends on what your customers are going to buy. From what I have seen most people buy the smaller sizes such as 4x6 and 5x7 with the occasional 8x10 or larger. Even though there are warnings in the cart many people who order prints don't realize their photos are being cropped. It is easiest to make the aspect ratio so it fits the most amount of prints. A photo cropped for 10x15 will not fit an 8x10 very well and vise versa. The best advice I can give you is to leave extra room so the customer can crop it to fit the size print they choose. Another option is to only allow certain print sizes so they will match teh aspect ratio of the photo.

jfriend

Netgarden wrote:

Can anyone answer this also? thnx I need to know before doing a ton of photos the best size to upload for choices up to 10x15, or should I pick a more standard ratio?-
Another question, is 8.5x11 photo- for example- around 1600x1250@200dpi doable in a 10x15 for buyers, with no problems? In other words I don't want to make them too small and have problems with sizes. If I choose 10x15, which I could most the time to make them, will everyone have to crop all the time? I want to start out uncomplicated for the buyers and not have huge changes down the line. My previous print sizes worked well for me at home but they were all different sizes, and I printed accordingly. Not a problem here? thnx

I think you are overthinking this. Upload your images in their original pixel count and original aspect ratio. Don't resize the images at all. The labeled images size (like 10x15) is just a piece of metadata which Smugmug does not use. There is no need to set dpi or image sizes on your images. Just upload the pixels you have. All Smugmug cares about is how many pixels you have. You may crop your images before upload to include only the content you want or fix compositional issues, but don't crop too closely because you need to leave a little extra slack for the required cropping to match certain image sizes. For exmaple, the 8x10 size always needs to chop a bunch off the long edge to fit right.

When it comes time to actually print, Smugmug will scale your image up or down appropriately for the print size that is ordered and the native capabilities of the printer being used. You don't have to worry about that at all. If your camera is natively a 3:2 aspect ratio, then 4x6, 8x12, 12x18 and 20x30 will print without any cropping needed. Other sizes like 8x10 will require some cropping in the shopping cart in order to fit the size appropriately.

Netgarden

Thanks for the very informative notes!
OK only one more question. My photos upload at 72DPIs, and I usually save them @200dpi. Should I continue that? Or does 72DPI allow for larger prints? thnxxxx!

jfriend wrote:

I think you are overthinking this. Upload your images in their original pixel count and original aspect ratio. Don't resize the images at all. The labeled images size (like 10x15) is just a piece of metadata which Smugmug does not use. There is no need to set dpi or image sizes on your images. Just upload the pixels you have. All Smugmug cares about is how many pixels you have. You may crop your images before upload to include only the content you want or fix compositional issues, but don't crop too closely because you need to leave a little extra slack for the required cropping to match certain image sizes. For exmaple, the 8x10 size always needs to chop a bunch off the long edge to fit right.

When it comes time to actually print, Smugmug will scale your image up or down appropriately for the print size that is ordered and the native capabilities of the printer being used. You don't have to worry about that at all. If your camera is natively a 3:2 aspect ratio, then 4x6, 8x12, 12x18 and 20x30 will print without any cropping needed. Other sizes like 8x10 will require some cropping in the shopping cart in order to fit the size appropriately.

Allen

Netgarden wrote:

Thanks for the very informative notes!
OK only one more question. My photos upload at 72DPIs, and I usually save them @200dpi. Should I continue that? Or does 72DPI allow for larger prints? thnxxxx!

72DPIs is a monitor display thing, has nothing to do with printing. Upload as
many pizels as you can, like in the original.

Cameron

Allen wrote:

72DPIs is a monitor display thing, has nothing to do with printing. Upload as
many pizels as you can, like in the original.

An additional note, don't worry about changing the DPI - in fact, just ignore it for the most part. It's the # of pixels that matter, so just upload them all and you won't have to worry about any of it!

Netgarden

Thank you everyon! The reason I asked about dpi's is because I do some printing at home so I like them saved at at least 150-200 dpi's. So do I now save both files. I'm trying to simplify my workflow.

CSwinton wrote:

An additional note, don't worry about changing the DPI - in fact, just ignore it for the most part. It's the # of pixels that matter, so just upload them all and you won't have to worry about any of it!

Cameron

Netgarden wrote:

Thank you everyon! The reason I asked about dpi's is because I do some printing at home so I like them saved at at least 150-200 dpi's. So do I now save both files. I'm trying to simplify my workflow.

No, I think you're making it too complicated. Changing the DPI of a file does, well, nothing really. Try it for yourself. Open an image, save it as 300 DPI, open another copy of the same image, save it as 72 DPI. As long as you're not RESIZING it, and simply changing the DPI, your image will be exactly the same.

Here's a good link with some more info:
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html

If I were you, I'd pretend the DPI field doesn't even exist (for your printer, local display, or uploading to smugmug). What matters is # of pixels (resolution). Most software you print from these days doesn't rely on the DPI of the image to choose the size. Once you tell the software what SIZE you want your photo to be, it'll use all of the available pixels to give you a good image.

What software do you use to print at home?

Netgarden

Sorry, so late at this post. I use PaintshopPro9 and DPP for editing and print straight from the PC to printer. Better color that way. I actually unistalled Canon easy prints because of a bad dll. and my ink now matches my online screen perfectly. So I really don't want to change a thing if I don't have to. Especially color values. OK will be glad to not worry about the dpi's! I wanted to make sure I wouldn't have to spend time doing a bunch over later on. All my older print files are ready to upload. [I never uploaded any large files at Smugmug until now.] Just mid size for the last two years. So I will have to reorganize all my folders, choose the prints I want to upload for sale from the past, and keep with a standard way from now on. I also do not have time to do stuff over, so I wanted to get it right before reorganizing. Yes, I have resized many photos, which birders have to, and managed excellent pics at home. I just don't want to do it wrong for smugmug. It looks like the pixel count is close to what I value my good photos at, so we may be ok. Excellent info page,
Thank you!

CSwinton wrote:

No, I think you're making it too complicated. Changing the DPI of a file does, well, nothing really. Try it for yourself. Open an image, save it as 300 DPI, open another copy of the same image, save it as 72 DPI. As long as you're not RESIZING it, and simply changing the DPI, your image will be exactly the same.

Here's a good link with some more info:
http://www.rideau-info.com/photos/mythdpi.html

If I were you, I'd pretend the DPI field doesn't even exist (for your printer, local display, or uploading to smugmug). What matters is # of pixels (resolution). Most software you print from these days doesn't rely on the DPI of the image to choose the size. Once you tell the software what SIZE you want your photo to be, it'll use all of the available pixels to give you a good image.

What software do you use to print at home?