Digital photography questions!!!

[Hoeboy]

If I want to start a portfolio w/ 8"x10" photographs, what resolution should I be taking pictures at? Is 1600x1200 a good enough resolution? What photo paper is really good and not too expensive? I've tried Epson premium glossy photo paper and I love it. It's awesome but also expensive. Runs about $34.99 for 50.

 

[Wallydraigle]

Ideally you would want your file to be 300ppi or better. Anything 200ppi or better will still give very good results for most things. You could prepare several small test images at different resolutions and print them out. That way you can see how many pixels you need for your prints to look the way you want them to.

 

[Hoeboy]

so 300ppi = 3000x2400 resolution?

 

[notfred]

ppi is really a misnomer, as I don't know of a single peice of display hardware that can do 300ppi. You're really going to be printing at 300 dpi, but one pixel equates to one dot on the printer, so your resolution will be the same. But yeah, for high quailty 8x10s, you'll want 3000x2400.

 

[Hoeboy]

jeebus. that's 7.2 megapixels

 

[slaman]

Obviously more pixels is better. Reasonably, 2MP is the minimum for an 8x10 print. This equates usually to about 1600x1200.

 

[MrBond]

I took a 3MP shot with my s602 zoom then took it to walmart for printing. The 8x10 they printed looked great.

Walmart charged me ~$2.75 for the 8x10, I had it in under an hour. I imagine you could get similar results from online printing places. Ofoto is $4 for an 8x10, so is shutterfly. At $2.75/ 8x10, it's getting to where it's almost cheaper to have walmart print them for you when you figure in your time/ink/paper.

 

[Wallydraigle]

Originally posted by: Hoeboy
jeebus. that's 7.2 megapixels

Yes, yes it is. But you can usually get away with much less. Unless you're doing landscapes or something where you'll have a lot tiny details. For portraits you can actually get away with much less, since most people don't want to be able to see every pore and zit in their picture

 

[RandomCoil]

I agree with some of the previous posts; 2MP is the minimum, but 3MP is closer to ideal. 2MP works best for 5x7 and smaller. I've heard the 300dpi number as the appropriate resolution for scanning photographs. Lower and you ~might~ miss some information, but higher is mostly pointless. Naturally I scan them at 400dpi...

Regarding printing, the best quality I've seen is still from 'professional' places (ofoto, but Walmart too probably). For a good value, you might try the Epson photo paper sold at Costco: link