…join me in the search for the simplicity found on the other side of complexity!
When people learn I shoot art professionally one of the first three questions they ask is “How high a resolution camera do I need to do that?” (The other two top questions are – ‘Will people really pay for that?’ and ‘How much do you charge?’)
Because it is over 6 feet long, the large black painting to the left is (obviously) not a good candidate for full-sized reproduction via a DSLR image. (Bark ball and painting are shown with permission of the Artist, Gary Carpenter.)
My answer to their first question is a question: “How big a copy does your customer want to make, and do they wish to print it, or just show it on the web?” You’ve seen perfectly good images of artwork on the web that were taken with a 4 megapixel (or less) camera. However, you probably haven’t seen art prints of any size from that camera. (The answer to the other two questions – “Will people really pay?” and “How much?” are “Yes,” and “It depends…” (More on the last question in a future post.))
Let’s cut to the chase and do some quick calculations about camera resolution and what it means for final image size – both printed and web:
What really matters is pixels-per-inch (or centimeter) sent to the output device. Note that this is NOT the DOTS per inch your printer brags about, its PIXELS per inch, the little dots that make up the image.) For printing, you need to send at least 150 (bare minimum), and preferably 240-300 pixels per inch to a good quality printer to achieve crisp results. Over 300 DPI, and most observers aren’t going to be able to see it (and many printers won’t print it any clearer). For on-screen viewing (web, slide shows, conversion to video) you only need 72-96 DPI (dots per inch). Here is a quick way to calculate how well your (more…)
I love it when two seemingly unrelated areas of my life collide with positive results.
Monday and Tuesday we had 9 inches of fresh spring powder snow in the mountains around Missoula, so Wednesday morning I headed for Snowbowl, our local ski area.
I enjoy winter photography as much as the skiing, so I took along my 20D, fitted with an 18-200 zoom. I like getting back into the silence of the woods and photographing the peace and serenity of snow, trees, and blue sky. (more…)
