Printing Sharp Photos Can Be a Snap

Digital photos, web captures, scans, photos on disk, stock photos…with so many ways to access photos today, making sure your photos look great in print has become more confusing. Here are some tips to make your photos pop:

• Size counts. As a rule of thumb, be sure that the digital size is over 700kb. The larger the photo, the better the quality.
• Photos captured from the web are not meant for print. Generally, web captures and photos retrieved from the web are not of print quality. The web contains primarily low resolution images—in the web world, refresh time for images is more important than quality.
• Shoot as large as you can. When shooting with a digital camera, take the photos at the highest resolution. You will fit less on a memory card, but the results will be good.
• Set to print. The best reproduction will be from photos that are the same size or larger than the size they will appear in print at a resolution of 300 dpi.
• Stock photography as an option. There are many affordable sources for stock photography that assure a high quality product.
• Professional photographers as another option. A professional photographer is prepared to capture images at a high resolution.

These tips will help you be sure that the image you put out there represents your best side.