Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Someone I took photos for is now trying to get them printed through Black's website. The website has a limit of 6MB per image. Full resolution JPEG files from my 5D2 ranges from around 15-26MB. So I'm going to have to reduce the file size (probably by reducing the image dimensions).

Before anyone start suggesting to go print elsewhere, I was wondering...

Are these values on suggested resolution vs print size accurate?
Max Print Size Minimum MP Resolution
4 x 6″ 2 megapixels 1600 x 1200
5 x 7″ 3 megapixels 2048 x 1536
8 x1 0″ 5 megapixels 2560 x 1920
11 x 14″ 6 megapixels 2816 x 2112
16 x 20″ 8+ megapixels 3264 x 2468

Do you think there will be any noticeable difference in print quality printing a 8x10 from the suggested 2560x1920 vs 5616x3744 (5D2 image dimensions)?

Thanks in advance.

For prints that are designed to be viewed at most an arm's length away (anything up to an 8"x10" or so, typically), 300 ppi is ideal, but you can get away with 200 ppi. So take 200 as your lower bound and 300 as your upper bound, and multiply that by the dimensions of the print.

For an 8"x10" print, that means pixel dimensions of 1600x2000 to 2400x3000 would be reasonable. You could still send the full 22-megapixel image for an 8"x10", but it will just be resized down by the printer anyway, so it's a waste sending a file larger than what is required.

If you are doing the prep work in Photoshop, you can save out the final JPEG to be printed at quality level 8 to conserve file size. I doubt you will be able to tell the difference between that and a level 10 or 12 JPEG in print.

This, or put file on a stick and use it in a store, do they have size limitation in-store? I resize most of the time for exact size, since I do exact sharpening for output and stuff...

Thanks for the suggestions.



I thought about that. I doubt they have the limit in-store. I plan on giving them a quick call to ask.

I've gotten an error using the black's kiosks before saying "You have a picture over the limit of 30MB, we are unable to..." something something something.
Unfortunately I don't remember if it was 30MB or 20MB. That was the kiosk, I'm not sure about the Photo Lab there.

Just for the record, I wasn't trying to print a 30MB pic at a kiosk, it was on my usb key with other pictures I was trying to print.

The self-serve systems don't like working with TIFF files either. I could have sworn I've used TIFF files in the past but the last time I went there (about a month ago) it wouldn't recognize my TIFF files and I have to convert them to JPEGs.

I beleive at Costco the limit is 8 Meg, that is a third larger and when compressed to jpeg represents a reasonalby good quality increase and you can get printer profiles for costco printing.


http://www.drycreekphoto.com/icc/Profil ... ofiles.htm