Saving images for sharing

[klpurkett]

I recently took pictures at a large family reunion. I am planning to put the finished images on a thumb drive to give to one of the sisters who will be then dispersing the pictures to the right families. (I honestly don't know half of the people there.) We're talking about 100 images. Here's my question: what resolution should I save these images at? I'm saving them as JPEGs. I do not know if these will be printed, emailed to others, posted on facebook, or just looked at on their computers. I guess I want the resolution to be high enough that they will look good if printed, but small enough that they can email them to one another if they want to. What would you all do, or what do you do in cases like these? Thanks in advance!
Kristy

[Manfred M]

Make the largest dimension 1600 pixels (width or height), use sRGB and if you are using Photoshop - resolution of 10. If it asks for a ppi setting, I will use "100". These will display quite nicely on a computer screen, yet be compact enough so that they take up too much space.

[klpurkett]

Make the largest dimension 1600 pixels (width or height), use sRGB and if you are using Photoshop - resolution of 10. If it asks for a ppi setting, I will use "100". These will display quite nicely on a computer screen, yet be compact enough so that they take up too much space.

Ok, thanks. Yes, I am using Photoshop. What is sRGB, if I may ask? This sounds like something I ought to know, but I don't!

[Manfred M]

sRGB is a colour space and the one you should be using to post any images on the internet (although not for editing). Other common colour spaces are AdobeRGB and ProPhoto; these are better to edit with, but unless you convert to sRGB, the colours will look muddy when viewed with an internet browser.

Likewise, if someone plans to print the images, most commercial photo labs assume sRGB and again, the prints will look muddy if the file uses another colour space.

My usual workflow is to use ProPhoto when I am using raw files and AdobeRGB when I use jpegs (my camera is set for AdobeRGB jpegs) and I will convert in Photoshop before I upload my files for display.

[klpurkett]

sRGB is a colour space and the one you should be using to post any images on the internet (although not for editing). Other common colour spaces are AdobeRGB and ProPhoto; these are better to edit with, but unless you convert to sRGB, the colours will look muddy when viewed with an internet browser.

Likewise, if someone plans to print the images, most commercial photo labs assume sRGB and again, the prints will look muddy if the file uses another colour space.

My usual workflow is to use ProPhoto when I am using raw files and AdobeRGB when I use jpegs (my camera is set for AdobeRGB jpegs) and I will convert in Photoshop before I upload my files for display.

Thanks Manfred! Wow, I did not know any of this! Thanks for the thorough expansion... Much appreciated.

[TonyW]

Depending on the degree of computer literacy of the person distributing the files, I would offer a high resolution set and a low resolution set.

The high resolution set would have as many pixels as came out of the camera minus any that were cropped off converted to JPEG at reasonably high quality where I would expect each file to be say 3 to 5 MB.

The low resolution set would fit within 1400 x 1050 pixels converted to high quality JPEG with a file size of around 1 MB. The size of the file depends on how much detail there in the picture. I belong to a camera group which specifies this number of pixels as a maximum which fits its projector.

I would also convert to the sRGB colour space.

[IzzieK]

I recently took pictures at a large family reunion. I am planning to put the finished images on a thumb drive to give to one of the sisters who will be then dispersing the pictures to the right families. (I honestly don't know half of the people there.) We're talking about 100 images. Here's my question: what resolution should I save these images at? I'm saving them as JPEGs. I do not know if these will be printed, emailed to others, posted on facebook, or just looked at on their computers. I guess I want the resolution to be high enough that they will look good if printed, but small enough that they can email them to one another if they want to. What would you all do, or what do you do in cases like these? Thanks in advance!
Kristy

My work flow is to edit the images, translate to SRGB at 1600px on the longest side, then do a contact sheet. Then tell the one who is incharge of distributing it, to contact you if they want a bigger copy for printing. You really already have it because you've done your edit anyway. This way you only have a few pages to give to one of the sisters and yet it is viewable even via Windows default viewer, enlarged for proper viewing but not printable.

My reasoning is that not everyone would want all of the photos from the event anyway...save you from making several DVDs for the hundredth time for distribution.

Just my thought...

[davidedric]

Hi,

I'd go for the two copies solution. To make life easy for the distributor, I think I would put them in two separate folders ("for sharing" and "big"?) That way, she can distribute the smaller ones with a note to say she has larger sizes available if wanted, and you are out of the loop

FWIW, when I upload photos to this site I upload at 1200 pixels on the long edge.

Dave

[klpurkett]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I think I'll go with the two copies solution, one for sharing and one for printing. I would prefer to not be the contact person for the larger files, so I'll put both folders on the thumb drive for her. Sounds like the most efficient method to me! Thanks again!
Kristy