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Is 600 px by 450 px appropriate for a high quality 4x6 print?

M

malenasoledad

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have downloaded pictures of friends and myself off of their Myspace, and I don't know if the smaller sized pixels will reduce the quality of an image. 🙁

I have also looked up that 1200x1800 is considered appropriate and other sites have said that it depends on if the pixels are proportionate. 😕

Is 600 px by 450 px appropriate for a high quality 4x6 print?

Thank you🙂
 
It'll be an ok picture, but not the very highest quality.

Generally, you can see the 'dots' that make up a print when there are less than 150 of them per inch.

So with your download an print, 6 inches / 600 = 100 dots per inch. You'll probably see a little pixelation and roughness to the image.

Most photographers like to print at 300 dots per inch, so for a 6x4, you'd be looking at 1800 x 1200 or 2 megapixels.

Interestingly, a big print of 8x10 size is only 7 megapixels at 300 dots per inch (and you can get away with 200 or 250dpi on a bigger print). Since most folk never print this big - it really highlights the fact that new 10, 12 or 14 megapixel point and shoot cameras are more about marketing than about print quality!!
 
firestarter said:
It'll be an ok picture, but not the very highest quality.

Generally, you can see the 'dots' that make up a print when there are less than 150 of them per inch.

So with your download an print, 6 inches / 600 = 100 dots per inch. You'll probably see a little pixelation and roughness to the image.

Most photographers like to print at 300 dots per inch, so for a 6x4, you'd be looking at 1800 x 1200 or 2 megapixels.

Interestingly, a big print of 8x10 size is only 7 megapixels at 300 dots per inch (and you can get away with 200 or 250dpi on a bigger print). Since most folk never print this big - it really highlights the fact that new 10, 12 or 14 megapixel point and shoot cameras are more about marketing than about print quality!!
Click to expand...


Thank you for your detailed response. 🙂 What if I make a collage consisting of the 1800x1200 px?
 
malenasoledad said:
Thank you for your detailed response. 🙂 What if I make a collage consisting of the 1800x1200 px?
Click to expand...

6x4 prints are cheap... try doing one to see how it turns out.

I'm a member of a photo club, and it was my job to get a 30x20 inch print made from a member's 1 megapixel camera phone (they won a competition with the image). It looked pretty good at a long viewing distance!

Camera owners obsess about very best quality. Your print won't be the best, but if you like the picture, and you concentrate on enjoying the image rather than holding it an inch from your eye and looking for dots - then just go for it and enjoy the result!

Try a collage too if you're feeling creative! 😀
 
firestarter said:
6x4 prints are cheap... try doing one to see how it turns out.

I'm a member of a photo club, and it was my job to get a 30x20 inch print made from a member's 1 megapixel camera phone (they won a competition with the image). It looked pretty good at a long viewing distance!

Camera owners obsess about very best quality. Your print won't be the best, but if you like the picture, and you concentrate on enjoying the image rather than holding it an inch from your eye and looking for dots - then just go for it and enjoy the result!

Try a collage too if you're feeling creative! 😀
Click to expand...


Thank you. That's an excellent point, it's the content that matters more. =)
 
Another suggestion is running it through photo editing software such as Lightroom (new 2.0 from Adobe), Aperture (Mac), or any others, and playing around with the sharpness meter. You can define some edges as well as smooth out the overall image depending on the editor. May not do much depending on the quality of your image but its better than nothing.
 
firestarter said:
Most photographers like to print at 300 dots per inch, so for a 6x4, you'd be looking at 1800 x 1200 or 2 megapixels.
Click to expand...

Well you seem knowledgeable enough for me to assume that we BOTH know that we don't need to print at 300 ppi. I doubt people could tell the difference between 300 ppi, and 240 ppi, or even 200 ppi in some cases. You can tell if the photo was perfectly sharp to begin with, but the 300 ppi "standard" is only for a very ideal, perfect, particular situation. I mean, it's for people who view a 300 ppi image from 12 inches away, have near-perfect eyesight (which no adult has without a pair of glasses purchased recently), and are only looking at a photo to look for technical flaws, not photographic flaws. This criteria is rarely met, so who really gives a toss? 😉 A ppi of 240 is fine, and a ppi of 180-200 will give you decent results if the image is perfectly sharp.

I have gotten good results from printing a 10" x 15" photo from a 6 MP image (3000 x 2000 pixels). With no cropping, that's 150 ppi. It looked great from 2 feet. It sits over my desk, so people tend to look at it from a distance of 3 feet or so. At a distance of 3 feet, the photo will appear to be as good as a 300 ppi image. In fact, a 100 ppi image seen from 3 feet away will be as good as a 300 ppi image seen at 1 foot distance.
 
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