LR Tips Pick the Right Resolution for Printing Photos


RSSNewsRobot

Senior Member
When you print photos yourself, you'll get the best results with the correct resolution. This guide helps you figure out what that means--and no, the answer isn't "as high as possible".read more



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Easiest way for me to remember is:

1. Think about the size of the print.
2. Resize the image to be 300 dpi x print size.
3. Export the image in JPG and sRGB color, if possible sharpen as well.

That's it!

For example:

1. I want to print a 4x6 inch hardcopy (4R size).
2. Resize the image to 1200x1800 pixels, which is 4x300 and 6x300 dpi.

Hardcopies can't do anything above 300 dpi, so the above works
very well... unless you want to print a book consisting of multiple
sizes, which is another headache altogether.
 

Easiest way for me to remember is:

1. Think about the size of the print.
2. Resize the image to be 300 dpi x print size.
3. Export the image in JPG and sRGB color, if possible sharpen as well.

That's it!

For example:

1. I want to print a 4x6 inch hardcopy (4R size).
2. Resize the image to 1200x1800 pixels, which is 4x300 and 6x300 dpi.

Hardcopies can't do anything above 300 dpi, so the above works
very well... unless you want to print a book consisting of multiple
sizes, which is another headache altogether.
iirc, 1200x1800 is already the size of S8R?
 

generally 300dpi is considered to be the optimal, but not always we got so much pixel to print large size. going down to 200 or even 150dpi is enough if the print is not meant to be examined close up.
It depends on the size of the print, how far the audiences are, quality of the digital copy... etc
 

@WhiteFields: I don't know what is S8R, but 1200x1800 pixels at 300dpi is really 4R print size. 300 dots-per-inch means 1200 dots in 4 inches, and 1800 dots in 6 inches.

@ExplorerZ: Am giving a general rule of thumb which is easy for me to remember, and hopefully helps others as well. I take photos in RAW, and have printed many 4R photos using this method with good sharpness in the final print.

Actually, this method works regardless of size. For example, if I want to print 11R (11" × 14"),
this means I need 3300x4200 pixels at 300dpi (that is 13.8 mega pixels). If my camera only has 12 MP, then I should use only 2200x2800 pixels at 200dpi.

Best is to adjust your JPG output size according to what dpi the printer can print to. :)
 

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