Surely you have already used the new Facebook photo viewer. Facebook’s creation of the photo viewer was part of its Photos review, one of the if not tea 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 correctly recognized as a user need and implemented.
With this exciting new feature comes an inevitable downside: it takes longer to load high-resolution photos, much longer. Actually, according to Facebook, about 10 times more. Everything worthwhile has a price, right? It’s up to you to decide if it’s 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 display, but also increases print quality. This, along with the ability to download any photo, gives you the tools you need to print photos from Facebook.
What size can you print photos with this increased resolution? Is there a way to print even larger photos? If you print most of the photos on Facebook at their current resolution, you can probably get a 4×6 and maybe a 5×7 in good quality without any enhancement to the photo. Notice I said probably. This is because each photo is different. Some photos are heavily cropped, which decreases 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’re fine for posting to Facebook, but not great for print.
Now if you are ordering from a company that upgrade Facebook photos when you order them, the following table is a approach what size prints can you expect to be able to print. Remember, each company will enhance photos differently and you should get information from them about the print size of Facebook photos before you print them. It’s also hard to know what the photos will look like until you print them. So it’s best to check with the company you order from and do your own “tests” to get an idea of what size you can print certain photos.
600×800 or 425+kb file size = up to 10×13 400×600 or 25-44kb file size = up to 8×12 399×599 or 1-25kb file size = up to 4×6 (Some companies will analyze the photo for you and tell you what size you can print.)
Remember, the chart above is just a guide to how large Facebook photos can be printed if enhanced by a photo printing company. The best thing to do is order a few prints and experiment to see how the photos turn out and what size you can print them. If the larger prints are grainy and pixelated, it means 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 at 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 at a given resolution, you’ll have a baseline from which to determine the print size of photos in the future.
An important point: photo printers do NOT affect or have control over the output 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 fault of the printer. They print photos exactly as you ask. They can’t add pixels to a photo that aren’t there. It is your responsibility to ensure that the photos you send them are of a high enough resolution to print at the size you have requested. Printers definitely need to take responsibility for the mistakes they make; however, it is important for the customer to understand that print quality based on resolution is beyond the control of the printer.
I hope you found this article helpful and shed some light on 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
