Resolution woes...

[Beltaine]

So ever since I got my Rebel XT (which I absolutely love, btw) the high resolution of the camera has plagued me with a problem I can't find a good answer to.

What resolution can I downsize to for display on a web photo gallery, but still keep a decent photo suitable to be printed 4x6"?

For my first album, seen here, I resized all my crops to 1600x1100, keeping a 3:2 ratio. Only had one crop that actually was an increase in image size when resized, but not by much. Then my border extended the image to 1690x1140. I haven't tried to make a print from any of these files yet, but do you think that resolution is sufficient, or should I be shooting for something else?

Obviously if I had a great shot I wanted to print larger I'd forget scaling down and just use a simple crop, but scaling images down means I can put more on my website

Ideas?

[another view]

I'd go with two different files for two different purposes. I make small prints at 300dpi, so 4x6 would work out to 1200x1800 pixels. You could put an image that size on a website but the download speed will be slow for some people trying to look at it, plus if they don't re-size on the site to a more manageable size on screen then you'll be scrolling back and forth, up and down. That gets annoying - once in awhile you'll see a shot here that's way too big for on-screen viewing.

Since 1024x768 is a popular screen resolution, I'd make an 800x533 (think that's what it works out to) for websites, or even 600x400. Either one of these is a fraction of the size so it will load quicker and be easier to see. It doesn't take long to resize these images (hint: batch re-size) and will keep people from leaving your site from frustration.

[Beltaine]

Thankfully, Coppermine will resize the image to make a thumbnail and a gallery view. The gallery view I set to 800 pixels max, keeping the original aspect ratio. So right now, when you click on the thumbnail, you get a nice, manageable 800 pixel photo. Clicking on the gallery view again will load the full-size image.

I may push a little more pixels on the full-size image in the future and let Coppermine resize the full-size image to something manageable while I keep the original on my hard drive for printing.

1690x1140 is just under 2MP. Cutting down to 2MP from 8MP seems like a crime to me

[another view]

Cutting down to 2MP from 8MP seems like a crime to me

I know what you're saying, but you only need 2mp to get the job done in the case of a small print. Setting the max at 800px for viewing is a good idea, but it still may lead to long downloads for some people.

[Sebastian]

1690x1140 is just under 2MP. Cutting down to 2MP from 8MP seems like a crime to me

Either you do it and have control, or the lab does it and runs the risk of reducing the quality. Megapizzels are nothing more than numbers, don't get attached to them, they are largely worthless.

[readingr]

What is the intention of the WEB site - is it to allow others to print your images directly from the WEB?

If its only for display on the WEB then 640 x 480 is adequate for most monitors and therefore allows you to get a small file for loading quickly from the web.

Its only when you come to printing that dpi matters and that is a totally different ball game to viewing on monitors.

So you need to work out what the goal of the web site is first and sort out what size files you need.

Roger

[Beltaine]

The website's purpose is just to put up pictures to share with friends and such. I had toyed with the thought of keeping a full-size printable image there as an archive of sorts, but as it is, I do very little printing, so that's probably not the best idea.

That aside, this all started when I was trying to figure out how to avoid having half a dozen different resolution versions of the same shot on my hard drive, and also having a base resolution to work with so that I could add a frame and signature to my photos with a PS action rather than doing it by hand for every shot.