crop and resize photos to print

rhondag

I am new to this..... I am shooting with a Canon 20D and 70mm-200mm lens. My original pix size is 2336 X 3504. At this size, an 8 x 10 print will be good, but can I crop to 600 x 400 and the print quality be fine for an 8 x 10 print? I saw that Chris MacAskill offered a photo that was cropped from 3072 x 2048 pixs to 600 x 400 pixs and an 8 x 10 was available to order. However in reviewing different websites for developing it seems I am limited to only sending in a photo size of 1200 x 1600 pixs by some and 800 pixs per size by Smugmug? I did send a 577 x 808 pixs photo to EZ Prints directly.....there was a(!) caution by all 3 sizes (4x6, 5x7,and 8 x 10) that the quaility print expected was not recommended. I ordered an 4 x 6 and 5x7 as a test and both were great prints. Can you help me understand this whole process? RG

System

rhondag wrote:

I am new to this..... I am shooting with a Canon 20D and 70mm-200mm lens. My original pix size is 2336 X 3504. At this size, an 8 x 10 print will be good, but can I crop to 600 x 400 and the print quality be fine for an 8 x 10 print? I saw that Chris MacAskill offered a photo that was cropped from 3072 x 2048 pixs to 600 x 400 pixs and an 8 x 10 was available to order. However in reviewing different websites for developing it seems I am limited to only sending in a photo size of 1200 x 1600 pixs by some and 800 pixs per size by Smugmug? I did send a 577 x 808 pixs photo to EZ Prints directly.....there was a(!) caution by all 3 sizes (4x6, 5x7,and 8 x 10) that the quaility print expected was not recommended. I ordered an 4 x 6 and 5x7 as a test and both were great prints. Can you help me understand this whole process? RG

I would not use a 600x400 pic to make an 8x10 from. It can be done but it probably won't be that pretty. If you want decent resolution you should use something like 2100x1500 or maybe a little less. 2100x1500 is 300dpi @7x5 inches. Usually you want somewhere between 200-300 dpi on a typical 8x10 print. I usually always try to stay bertween 240dpi and 300dpi depending on what I am printing. In some cases a 1600x1200 image can be used to make an 8x10/9x12 from with decent quality, but not always. I have made concert 8x10 prints from 1600x1200 images (after slight cropping) and at times they can look pretty good.

EZ prints will interpolate a smaller image to a printable resolution. If your original is small but good, you can still make reasonable enlargements. If not you might end up with crapola. Here is a bit of info smugmug provides you on this subject: http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality. As a general rule of thumb I always use at least my full size originals to print from. My originals are usually 2560x1920.

Here is how you can calculate things, as an example multiply the paper size in inches by 300(the dpi you want to print at) 5x300pixels by 7x300 pixels.This tells you that your original should be 1500x2100 to print high quality 5x7 prints at 300dpi.

For a reasonable print at 200dpi for an 8x10 (8x200 and 10x200) you image diminsions would need to be 1600x2000. I would not go lesss than (8x150 and 10x150) 1200x1500 for an 8x10. Ezprints will do the rest for you...

Hope this helps and good luck.

-don

Baldy

I'm Chris MacAskill but I use the screen name Baldy just to confuse everyone. Maybe I should change that?

If I made a 600x400 copy and made it printable, it was my mistake. I agree very closely with what Don said, above.

We actually do allow 8x10 prints to be made from images as low as 640x480 and that's because our subscribers from Iraq and Afghanistan have military-issue cameras with that resolution. Their families want 8x10s even if they aren't the sharpest. It's surprising how good they do turn out, but there's no beating more pixels from the camera.