I’m sure you’ve already used the new Facebook photo viewer. Facebook’s creation of the photo viewer was part of his review of Photos, one of the tea the most popular types of content that users create, share and consume on Facebook. Included in this restructuring was the ability to upload higher resolution photos to Facebook, a feature that Facebook rightly recognized as a user need and implemented.
With this exciting new feature comes an unavoidable drawback, it takes longer to upload high resolution photos, much longer. Actually, according to Facebook, about 10 times more. Everything worthwhile has a price, right? It is up to you to decide if it is worth your time.
How do you know? What are the advantages of uploading your photos in high resolution?
Facebook has increased the size of photos by 20% at 720 dpi so you can post higher quality photos. This improves the display, but also increases the print quality. This, along with the ability to download any photo, gives you the tools you need to print Facebook photos.
How big can you print photos with this increased resolution? Is there a way to print even larger photos? If you print most photos on Facebook at their current resolution, you will probably be able to get a good quality 4×6 and maybe 5×7 without any enhancement to the photo. Notice I said probably. This is because each photo is different. Some photos are severely cropped, diminishing their quality. Others come from camera phones, and while some camera phones produce high-quality photos, most give you low-quality photos. You can imagine what happens if you crop a photo from a camera phone! They are fine for posting to Facebook, but not for printing.
Now, if you order from a company that enhances Facebook photos when you request them, the following table is a approach what size prints you can expect to print. Remember, each company will enhance photos differently and you need to get information from them about the print size of Facebook photos before printing. It is also difficult to know what photos will look like until you print them. Therefore, it is best to check with the company you are ordering from and run your own “proofs” to get an idea of how large certain photos can print.
600×800 or 425+ kb file size = up to 10×13 400×600 or 25-44 kb file size = up to 8×12 399×599 or 1-25 kb file size = up to 4×6 (Some companies will analyze the photo for you and tell you what size you can print.)
Remember, the table above is just a guide to how great you can print Facebook photos if they are enhanced by a photo printing company. The best thing to do is to order some prints and experiment to see how the photos look and how big you can print them. If your larger prints are grainy and pixelated, you printed them too large for your lower resolution. If they are very clear and of high quality, you may be able to print them in a larger size.
Unfortunately, printing Facebook photos is not an exact science and requires some experimentation and patience. Once you have a good idea of how large you can print photos of a certain resolution, you will have a baseline from which you can determine how large to print photos in the future.
An important point: photo printers DO NOT affect or have control over the result of a photo as a result of its resolution. If a photo is low resolution and the print is pixelated or grainy, understand that this is not the printer’s fault. They print photos exactly as you ask. They cannot add pixels to a photo that is not there. It is your responsibility to ensure that the photos you send them are of a high enough resolution that they will be printed at the size you have requested. Printers should definitely take responsibility for any mistakes they make; however, it is important for the customer to understand that resolution-based print quality is beyond the control of the printer.
I hope this article has been helpful to you and clarifies the resolution of Facebook photos and the effect it has on the quality of your prints.
Do you have a question or comment? What is your opinion on resolution and printing? I hope to hear from you! Source: http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=337389082130
