What two big lessons did we learn with our on-line Photo orders?
Nobody
We have spent the last month trying out four of the biggest on-line photo
printing sites. What follows is the abbreviated story of what we learned
from our adventure... and BOY did we learn a lot!
How it all started.
It all began with some vacation pictures we took in the Southern Caribbean
this last fall. We bought a new digital camera while down there and wanted
to share some of the photo's with friends and family. As always with
snapshots, especially those from a camera we were still learning to use, not
all the pictures were all that well composed, exposed and otherwise ready
for print.
Cropping helped, but we still needed some improvements if we were going to
send them to family and friends. My wife, Kathy suggested we use some of
her digital scrap pages from her sight (PrincessCrafts.com) as digital photo
frames and set them up as digital scrapbook pages. That way, even the worst
of the pictures could be enhanced with journaling and clipart to make them
more interesting.
Hey! I love trying new things, so it didn't take much to get me started.
Unfortunately, like so many that just dive in without doing much research; I
found out the hard way that there's more to these sites than meets the eye.
Now, I don't want you to think I jumped in without really doing any research
at all. I checked out four different sites (all offering free trial prints -
just pay shipping). We used Webshots (great screensaver program),
Shutterfly, Ofoto and Dot Photo. I read the basic instructions page at each
site and noted the file type (all sites - .JPG or JPEG) and size
requirements for each size print.
We'll review the results later. First, let's take care of a couple of common
questions. The ones I had were:
Q: What are the minimum recommended resolutions for uploaded images?
A: When you order pictures from any of the major online photo printers, you
may get a "not recommended" message if you try to order certain print sizes.
This means that the resolution of your picture is too low for the size of
print you want. They all recommend comparing the resolution of your pictures
to these resolution guidelines. Using these resolutions as a guide will help
you print the best pictures possible.
less than 640 x 480 Only wallet-size prints recommended
640 x 480 Absolute minimum resolution for 4x6 (results will vary)
1024 x 768 Minimum recommended resolution for 4x6
1152 x 864 Minimum recommended resolution for 5x7
1600 x 1200 Minimum recommended resolution for 8x10
11 X 14 at 3MP* or better
16 X 20 at 3MP* or better
20 X 30 at 3MP* or better
* MP (Mega (1,000,000) pixels)
Q: What does image resolution mean?
A: Resolution refers to the number of pixels in an image. Resolution is
usually referred to by the width and height of the image but, may also be
used as the total number of pixels in the image. For example, an image that
is 1600 pixels wide and 1200 pixels high (1600 в 1200) contains 1,920,000
pixels (or almost 2 Megapixels).
One major note here - if the original photo is blurry or out-of-focus, even
if there is sufficient
resolution, the final print will still be blurry or out-of-focus!
Lesson #1: Different size prints equal different sized images required
The dimensions (height x width) of your digital image are not always the
same as those of the print you want to make. In other words, the size needed
for an 8 X 10 is different than what is needed for a 5 X 7 and therefore,
some cropping (trimming) of your original image is required to make it fit
the paper size you choose. Of course on a straight digital image, there's
plenty of empty space on the sides to cut off with little or no effect on
the final image (most of the time).
But, on a digital scrapbook page, where we made full use of all the space
and left nothing to cut off... cropping, even a little bit is something we
don't want.
So, what do we need to do?
We asked that very same question to all of our test sites.
Get the full story at:
http://www.princesscrafts.com/tutorials/photo-printers.htm