Resolution when exporting to a tablet?

[davidedric]

I have an android tablet, which I use for showing pictures to friends and family.

When I "export for screen" from Lightroom, I usually limit the long side to 1200 pixels. That works fine for normal internet viewing, since most monitors won't be any higher resolution than that.

However, now folks have got used to smartphones and tablets, they immediately flick their fingers to zoom in - and the low resolution starts to show. I imagine that exactly how the image appears will depend on how android does its re-sampling, but I just wondered if any of you out there have had a similar experience, and what you did.

Any contributions welcome,

Dave

[royphot]

Hi.

I've got a 7 inch Samsung, and when I use the Samsung program to export images to the Tablet, they are automatically resized to fit. I have never bothered to check what that size actually is, because it just seems to work Ok.

However your idea that 1200pxl on the long side is suitable for monitors is a bit optimistic. My non wide screen monitor is 1600 x 1200. Most wide screen screens are about 1920 x 1020 -- just look up any on line shop for monitor adverts to see the exact resolution figures.
Roy

[MrB]

Hello Dave. I've also got an Android tablet (Nexus 7) mainly for showing photos to my friends. I just copy over the full size/res images (after PP) from the PC to the tablet, so that anyone who wants to can zoom in on the details. It seems to display a very good quality picture, whatever the size (until it goes beyond the maximum, of course).

Philip

[davidedric]

Yes, I should just export at full size. I was worried about filling up the card - I just hadn't done the arithmetic

[dje]

Yes, I should just export at full size. I was worried about filling up the card - I just hadn't done the arithmetic

Or you could tell your friends to keep their sticky fingers to themselves

Dave one thing to look at is how the file size affects the browse speed in your picture viewer. Some viewers are faster than others I think. What viewer are you using ?

Dave

[Manfred M]

On the other hand, I use the Nexus 7 as well and will sample to around the native resolution of the device; saves space for other stuff. More importantly, I find that if I store at full-size the images look (and are) oversharpened and take longer to load (with a 36MP camera, there is lot of material to throw out to display the image).

[NorthernFocus]

I see an opportunity for a bumper sticker: "Friends don't let friends resize"

[michaeljoconnell]

I have an android tablet, which I use for showing pictures to friends and family.

When I "export for screen" from Lightroom, I usually limit the long side to 1200 pixels. That works fine for normal internet viewing, since most monitors won't be any higher resolution than that.

However, now folks have got used to smartphones and tablets, they immediately flick their fingers to zoom in - and the low resolution starts to show. I imagine that exactly how the image appears will depend on how android does its re-sampling, but I just wondered if any of you out there have had a similar experience, and what you did.

Any contributions welcome,

Dave

Resize your images to the tablet's native screen size on the long edge and display them in full screen mode assuming the image dimension on the short side matches the shorter screen dimension as well. This will allow your tablet to display it full screen without mucking with the pixels. This is the only way you are going to ensure that your sharpening is displayed as you intended. Of course you need to output sharpen this resized image at 100% zoom on your PC as well. If you push larger images to your tablet then all bets are off unless zoomed to 100% on the tablet too. The problem stems from the tablet (or PC or any other display device) having to display the image at other than native resolution. It has to drop pixels if you display the image at less than 100% such as when zooming out to fit a large image on the screen. Since pixels of different luminosity along edges in your image create contrast you can't expect the driver to adequately reinterpret these pixels when it throws some away as it renders the image on the display. So always insist on showing the image at 100% when someone wants to evaluate sharpness. - Michael