Saving Images: Resolution and Format

Tip: Be sure to save your digital images offline even if you use an online photo site. Consider storing your images on a Photo DVD (pictured above) a Photo CD, on a digital media card or on an attached disk drive. That way, you will always have access to your original images in their original size and format.

When you upload your digital images to an online storage provider or photo site, be sure to check out what size image they store.

Some size re-size your images in order to make their storage more efficient. I was making a photo book for a friend and she sent me a Photo CD that she had ordered from her online provider. I loaded the image onto my computer and made the book. When the photo book came back, the images were very low resolution, looking grainy. I'd seen this many times before, so I took a look at the file sizes and sure enough the image on the disk were less than 200k! I'm guessing that the original files were some where around 5 megabytes.

I went to the online photo site that she uses to see what their policy was and after some looking found that they defined "high resolution" image size as 1,000 x 1,000 pixels. A camera that takes 12 megapixel images has an image size of 4256 x 2832 pixels. I checked another well known photo site that specializes on photo books and they "suggest" using 1,280 x 1,280 pixel images in their full page 8 1/2" x 11" photo books.

You might also want to check out what type of digital press they use to make the photo book and the settings they use on the press to print. I've seen photo books printed on a number of presses and there really is a quality difference. We like to use providers who use HP Indigo presses. we have a very picky retail partner who will only allow the use of the Indigo press for printing her customers books.

So why do they downsize? Simple, when you are storing millions (or billions) of images, the larger the file sizes, the more costly the bandwidth and storage. I talked to one online site that used to store 600 x 600 and upgraded to 800 x 800 and it cost $35 million to do the upgrade.

Be careful with downsized images. You'll run into big problems if you ever want to make a larger print or crop the image.

Working with Walgreens, aVinci Media has introduced a Photo DVD Archive product. The Photo DVD not only stores up to 4 Gigabytes of images (7 times the capacity of a Photo CD) but it also includes a free slideshow using forty (40) of your images set to music. You can watch the slideshow on any TV or Computer with a DVD player. The product is available on the in-store photo kiosk. As of January 15th, it is available in approximately 2,000 stores. It will roll out to all Walgreens stores in the next 30-45 days. The cost is less than $8