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Digital Photography 101 - Understanding Resolution And Pixels For Printing

With digital photography, there are lots of different ways to share your pictures (like email, websites, etc) but for those really important pictures most people want to have them printed and framed.

In addition to framing and displaying your best pictures, there are several other reasons that you may want to print your photos. Here are a few of the many ways printed photographs are used.

• Framed for the mantle, table and wall displays


• Posters


• Wallet pictures


• Memory books


• Greeting cards


• Photo crafts


• Photo competitions

Even in our digital day and age, we still have lots of interesting and beautiful things to do in print! But printing a photograph isn't as easy as selecting "Print" on your computer. Printing a quality print of a photograph is trickier than printing, say, a flyer. These photo printing tips will help make the process easier so you can get better quality prints.

Digital Photography 101 - Pixels Matter

Before you resize a picture on your computer, figure out first if you may ever want to print it. If so, be sure to hang on to the original.

When taking pictures, you always want to know if you plan to print the picture so you can take it with a high enough resolution to get a quality print in the size you want. Below are some examples to help you know how many pixels are needed for different sizes of prints.

High quality 10 x 13
2592 x1944 pixels (a 5 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality: 9 x 12 inches
2272 x 1704 pixels ( a 4 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality Picutres: 8 x10 inches
2048 x 1536 pixels ( a 3 mega pixel camera set for high resolution)

High Quality Picture: 4x6 or 5x7 inches
1600 x 1200 pixels (2 megapixel camera set for high resolution)

As you can see, you don't need a camera with tons of megapixels to get quality prints.

Using the correct settings on your printer is also important. Check with your manual or the manufacturers recommendations on their website. Then use a photo editor to resample the photos to the appropriate dpi. For those new to printing, dpi stands for "dots per inch". The more dots per inch, the smoother the picture grain and the better the image looks. Ink jet printers used today for printing quality pictures often have dpi resolution of around 1200 to 4800. This range of dpi will make quality prints that have around 140 to 300 pixels per inch.

Please note that the ppi or pixels per inch is the measurement for the resolution of a photograph taken with a digital camera, not to be confused with the height and width of the photo. For example a 200 pixel x 300 pixel picture would be very small while a picture with a 300 ppi isn't necessarily small because ppi refers to the quality of the picture (not the physical size).

Digital Photography 101 - Using the Right Type of Photo Printer Paper

Use photo-printing paper and if possible that which is made by your printer's manufacture and is recommended for your model or model family. Use special paper for projects such as greeting cards. You can find them online or at craft stores or office supply stores.

If you need high quality prints or extra large pictures, you can also go to your local photography store or order them online from a reputable retailer.

Have fun printing your digital images!

About the Author

Autumn Lockwood is a writer for Your Picture Frames and loves picture frame shopping. Shop online and see our large selection of picture frames in a wide variety of colors, sizes and styles like our wooden hinged picture frames or triple picture frames.

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