Digital Photographic Printing: Simplifying Pixels and DPI

Digital Photographic Printing has opened up new avenues for both amateur and professional photographers. For most photographers, saving digital photographic print provides unprecedented freedom to get the best shots. Never worry about wasting that precious piece of film, besides not knowing for sure that everything worth having is on it!

However, when it comes to printing, there are a few things one should keep in mind to avoid wasting too much quality photo paper, and expensive printer ink. In this article, we'll go over some basic digital photography terms and offer some tips for getting the best prints.

Resolution

Resolution refers to the "image sharpness" of a document and is usually measured in dots (or pixels) per inch (DPI). It also refers to the sharpness of the image that printers and monitors are able to reproduce. Depending on your specific needs, documents can be scanned at different resolutions. The higher the resolution of a document, the greater the sharpness of the image and the larger the file size.

With digital photography printing in mind, the first thing you need to ensure is that you upload the images at their full resolution. If you end up with 72dpi (dots per inch) images, your print quality will be useless. A resolution of 72 dpi is good for viewing on your computer screen, but an image with 200 to 300 dpi will print well in 8x10 inches.

Pixel

Pixel is short for "Picture Element." It is the smallest part of a digital image, and each image is made up of thousands or millions of pixels. This basic unit, from which a computer video or image is made, is basically a point with a given color and brightness value. The more pixels an image has, the higher the resolution of that image will be. One Megapixel is equal to one million pixels.

JPEG

Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is a standards committee that designed this image compression format. The compression format they devised is known as "lossy" compression because it removes information from an image that it considers unnecessary. JPEG files can range from small amounts of lossless compression to large amounts of lossy compression. It is a common standard on the World Wide Web, but the loss of data generated by its compression makes it undesirable for printing purposes.

When dealing with digital photography printing, you will primarily be working with the JPEG file format. Remember that every time you open and save a JPEG file, you lose some of the image information. Therefore, it is advisable to make all changes in one sitting and then save them once.

Digital Photographic Printing: Simplifying Pixels and DPI

Resolution Guide for Quality Prints

The higher the megapixel count of a camera, the more detail an image will retain when enlarged and/or printed.

1 to 2 Megapixels

Cameras with this resolution range are sufficient for sending photos electronically via e-mail but are not ideal for printing photos. Most Camera Phones, PC Camcorders, and PC Cameras have a resolution of 1 to 2 megapixels.

3 to 4 Megapixels

Cameras with this resolution range are good for printing and editing standard 4x6 inch images.

5 to 6 Megapixels

Cameras with this resolution range produce professional results when enlarging photos up to 8x10 inches.

7+ megapixel

Cameras with a resolution range of at least 7 megapixels promise superior quality and detail when printing or enlarging photos beyond 11x14 inches.

By simply looking at file size, you'll quickly learn to be an expert judge of quality. An image of 100 KB (kilobytes) or less is most likely too low resolution for good quality digital printing. Once you get to a minimum size of 400KB, you're working at a more useful resolution for an 8x10 inch print.

Printing Paper

If you take pride in your photographic endeavor or want those family photos available for the next generation, you'll definitely want your prints made on decent paper. Needless to say, in the end, your prints will only be as good as the paper you use.

There are many new coated papers available on the market specifically for this purpose, and you should consider what is recommended for the printer you are using.

Archival paper, popular in the world of inkjet printing, is the most durable paper and is acid-free. These printing papers don't come cheap, so plan carefully. Print only after final cropping, or after completing other edits, such as after adding a border with your imaging software.

Standard color inkjet and laser printers are good for text and graphics, but not always the best for digital photography printing. PictBridge compatible printers allow you to print your digital photos directly from the camera. Portable printers, such as the HP Photosmart 320 series, allow you to snap a photo and print 4x6-inch size photos anywhere on the go.

Incidentally, for smaller 4x6 inch prints, dye-sublimation printers give exceptional quality prints, and they are usually waterproof. However, the materials for such an impression are not cheap!

If you cannot get satisfactory results with your own digital photography print, especially if you are printing images larger than 8x10 inches, you can try one of the physical or even online photo labs that use photo printers dedicated to excellent results.

Photo labs can easily manage digital files directly from your memory card. Take along your digital camera, a homemade CD, or your camera's memory card for a professional quality digital photography impression.