Have you ever ordered photos and got them in the mail or from the drugstore only to realize that they are blurry, unclear, and maybe even pixelated? If so, you may have been quick to blame your photo printer. It has to be their fault right? After all, if you ordered the photos online they probably looked perfectly fine on the screen.
The reason your photos were pixelated is because they are low resolution. This mainly occurs from too much cropping or if a photo was taken with a low megapixel camera or camera phone. It is very important to understand resolution when printing photos, especially if you print them often. This prevents a lot of frustration and helps make sure that you are satisfied with your prints each and every time you order.
The following is a list of tips you can use to make sure that your photos are high resolution and give you the highest quality photo prints and products:
1. Make sure your digital camera or camera phone has a high number of megapixels. 10.0 MP and above will allow you to print larger photos. If your camera is lower than 10.0 MP you will need to print smaller photos to maximize print quality.
2. Camera phones are not ideal for capturing high resolution photos. My camera phone is 8.0 MP which is the highest I've seen. While I can print high quality photos at lower print sizes, if I print larger than an 8x10 the quality will start to diminish.
3. Be careful when cropping! The more you crop a photo, especially when trying to maintain the same size print, the more pixelated it will become since you are removing part of the photo and therefore the pixels.
4. Remember, viewing a photo on your screen whether it's on your computer or on Facebook requires a lower resolution photo than printing. Therefore, a photo can look great on your computer and awful when printed unless it's high resolution.
5. Experiment when printing your photos. Keep the first 4 tips in mind when deciding which photos to print, but experiment a little as well. For example, you may decide to crop a photo some more to see when the quality will start to diminish. Please keep in mind though that the prints you order may not come out perfectly until you learn from trial and error.
While having high resolution photos is very important when printing, there are other factors to consider for printing high quality photos as well. Lighting, focus, and how steady you hold the camera are also factors that affect print quality.
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