File sizes for website use

shawnc

I just spent some time on vacation in Oregon. We spent our nights in a quiet Bed & Breakfast. It was a very nice trip.
The owner was very nice, providing us with great personal attention due to our long stay. She really enjoyed the photos I took while there, so I offered her the use of some images for her new website.
She emailed me a list of the images she would like to use.

My question is: I do not want to send her Original size images for my own protection. What would be a satisfactory size JPEG to send her without sacrificing too much of the detail. The Program I use to Process my RAW images is Light Room 6(CC). When exporting my image Files to JPEG I set my Res to 300 dpi. I do not know how to work with the pixel image sizing. Would 72 dpi be too small?
Any suggestions?

AceCo55

The resolution (ie 300ppi or 72ppi) is irrelevant UNTIL you print.
The only things that matter are the pixel dimensions of the image and the compression level you use to save the jpeg.
I would suggest 1600 - 1800pixels for the longest side ... if you are wanting large images on some of the larger monitors.

Maybe use a quality level of say 6 - 9

I don't know if Lightroom has a "save for web & devices" setting - if so you can deliver a smaller file by using say 70% quality. This will reduce the file size quite a bit (number of pixels won't change because of that setting)
IF LIGHTROOM DOES have that, I would suggest you tick the checkmark about keeping the EXIF/Metadata data intact (assuming you have entered your copyright message into your file's metadata). This will mean your information will travel with the photo file.

Me - I only upload 1200pixel (long side) images to my website - allows for XL viewing size on my website.
Save for web quality of 30% - so my files are around 100kb

If you deliver 1600pixels (long side) and a jpeg level of 8 you will probably end up with file sizes in the order of 400 - 500kb - these will still load quite quickly on their website (but smaller number of pixels and "save for web" will load really fast due to the file size being even smaller)

Just remember, changing dpi setting does NOTHING to change the photo when displayed on screen. You could set the resolution at 1dpi or 900dpi (it's actually 1ppi and 900ppi) and you will not see ANY difference when displaying on a screen)

Peano

Ask her what pixel dimensions she wants to display on her site, and send her that size. Forget about resolution. That has no relevance to web images. (If she doesn't know the dimensions she needs, she should ask whoever is managing her site.)

pathfinder

What Peano said!

In Lightroom CC, when you right click your image and then click on Export.... you get the following dialogue box, and it offers you the opportunity to state precisely what size you want your exported jpg, png, or tif to be, as seen in the image below in the Image Sizing box. Ace's suggestions of an upper limit of 1200 or 1600 pixels seems quite reasonable, unless their website has a specific reason for larger file.

Don't fret about ppi or dpi - just choose a specific number of pixels on each side of your image to export.

For more information on image sizing in Photoshop - https://pathfinder.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Other/Resolution-Resizing-and-Dots/

shawnc

AceCo55 wrote: »

The resolution (ie 300ppi or 72ppi) is irrelevant UNTIL you print.
The only things that matter are the pixel dimensions of the image and the compression level you use to save the jpeg.
I would suggest 1600 - 1800pixels for the longest side ... if you are wanting large images on some of the larger monitors.

Maybe use a quality level of say 6 - 9

I don't know if Lightroom has a "save for web & devices" setting - if so you can deliver a smaller file by using say 70% quality. This will reduce the file size quite a bit (number of pixels won't change because of that setting)
IF LIGHTROOM DOES have that, I would suggest you tick the checkmark about keeping the EXIF/Metadata data intact (assuming you have entered your copyright message into your file's metadata). This will mean your information will travel with the photo file.

Me - I only upload 1200pixel (long side) images to my website - allows for XL viewing size on my website.
Save for web quality of 30% - so my files are around 100kb

If you deliver 1600pixels (long side) and a jpeg level of 8 you will probably end up with file sizes in the order of 400 - 500kb - these will still load quite quickly on their website (but smaller number of pixels and "save for web" will load really fast due to the file size being even smaller)

Just remember, changing dpi setting does NOTHING to change the photo when displayed on screen. You could set the resolution at 1dpi or 900dpi (it's actually 1ppi and 900ppi) and you will not see ANY difference when displaying on a screen)

Peano wrote: »

Ask her what pixel dimensions she wants to display on her site, and send her that size. Forget about resolution. That has no relevance to web images. (If she doesn't know the dimensions she needs, she should ask whoever is managing her site.)

pathfinder wrote: »

What Peano said!

In Lightroom CC, when you right click your image and then click on Export.... you get the following dialogue box, and it offers you the opportunity to state precisely what size you want your exported jpg, png, or tif to be, as seen in the image below in the Image Sizing box. Ace's suggestions of an upper limit of 1200 or 1600 pixels seems quite reasonable, unless their website has a specific reason for larger file.

Don't fret about ppi or dpi - just choose a specific number of pixels on each side of your image to export.

For more information on image sizing in Photoshop - https://pathfinder.smugmug.com/Landscapes/Other/Resolution-Resizing-and-Dots/

Thank you all for you help on this! I learned something new!
Strange, I have been working with LR for several years now and never did know how to work with image dimensions.
Now I have a new tool I need to gain a greater understanding.