What resolution for an 8x10?

[keith204]

I realize the "technical" resolution I "should" have if I was producing "professional" images would be like 2400x3000 or so, at 300dpi.

However, I have used about that resolution to print a 20x30 and it has still worked out well (not with a magnifying glass obviously, but well in the sense that customers still buy them and are pleased.)

The Problem:

After an event where I shoot a ridiculous amount of pictures (night of MMA fights, night of racing, etc) I end up with about 4GB worth of photos to upload to Smugmug, which is unreasonable with DSL. So, if I can knock that down to 1 or 2 GB, and restrict the customers to 8x10's and 20x30's only by request, then that would be a little easier to manage.

Didn't people blow up 8x10's when cameras would only do 4 or 5 MP images? So my question is... what can I "get away" with when quantity is more important than a crystal-clear image?

 

[Big Mike]

You can get away with less (maybe 240 PPI) but will Smugmug accept that? And will the results be good enough.

Rather than reduce the size of the image...I might be temped to save your 'for print' copies with a bit of Jpeg compression. Try bumping the quality down to 11 or even 10. That will actually save a whole lot of file size/space.

 

[jols]

my first digi was 1.3 million pixels and they blew up to 10 x 8 fine.

just do one for yourself and see if the quality is acceptable to you

 

[keith204]

You can get away with less (maybe 240 PPI) but will Smugmug accept that? And will the results be good enough.

Rather than reduce the size of the image...I might be temped to save your 'for print' copies with a bit of Jpeg compression. Try bumping the quality down to 11 or even 10. That will actually save a whole lot of file size/space.

Big Mike to the rescue, as always!

Man, thanks. That's a good idea bumping down the quality. I will test that, see how much it hurts the quality, see how it affects the size, etc. That's a super idea.