Getting The Best Results From Your Photo Printing
Let’s face it — online photo printing can be a little daunting. It’s easy to procrastinate doing anything with your photos for fear of it being a long and complicated process. How do you choose an ideal size that retains the image’s quality? Which is the best paper for photo printing? If you have a few questions on your mind, we understand.
Luckily, we like to think of ourselves as photography experts here at myFUJIFILM, so here are some digital photo printing tips to help you get the best results. We’ll cover how to print good-quality photos, how to make a picture bigger without losing quality, and much more.
When you’re ready to get the ball rolling with ordering your photo prints, browse our site to find the best printing option for you.
How do I print good-quality photos?
While you can try printing your photos at home, you’ll have to invest in your own materials and your prints might not be of the high quality you’re looking for.
The easiest way to guarantee you’ll end up with superb photo prints is to use a professional photo printing service, like myFUJIFILM. Our technicians develop photos day in, day out, so it’s safe to say they know what they are doing. Your images will be printed on premium Fujifilm original photographic paper and precisely formatted to your requirements.
Our photo prints are so high-quality, that we like to call them our High-Quality Photo Prints. Choose from seven different print sizes, from 4”x4” to 8’’x6”, and enjoy our rapid two-day turnaround if ordering to the UK mainland.
Our Fujifilm original paper comes as standard (but you can choose between a lustre and a gloss finish), so you don’t need to worry about upgrading your order. You’ll just get to cherish your long-lasting prints.
Getting the best results from a photo printing service
This being said, even if you decide to print your photos using a printing service, you’ll need to keep an eye on a few details to ensure perfect prints. If there are faults with your image, they won’t magically mend themselves during printing.
You’ll want to make sure you have the necessary foundations for a great end product — which means taking a look at the technical aspects of your digital photo.
Photo print sizes and the right file size
When printing photos, image quality largely depends on choosing the right resolution for the print size. Higher resolutions mean more pixels per inch. And the larger you want your print to be, the higher the resolution you’ll need to ensure it’s high quality.
For example, for a print that will be 4x6 inches, you’ll want a resolution of 1200x1800 pixels. For a print that will be 5x7 inches, you’ll want a resolution of 1500x2100 pixels. If you want a larger print, you’ll need to ensure that your image has an even higher resolution (or more pixels). Do some research into the specifics of the resolution required for your desired print size.
Photos with lower resolutions contain fewer pixels, which means they need to be printed in a small size if they are going to retain any quality. When you try to stretch them to a larger size, the pixels become too large — which creates that odd, blurry quality you sometimes see in photos. The pixels become visible, obscuring any fine details in the image. This is rarely a desired effect for anyone printing photos, so make sure you take all the steps to avoid it before you submit your files for processing.
Photos can look great on your camera, phone, or laptop, but always keep in mind that you’re translating something digital into something physical. You won’t get a good outcome if you ignore the crucial components of size, resolution, and formatting.
Cropping
Keep in mind that cropping your image can also impact the quality of your printed photo. While it can be tempting to remove parts of an image you feel are unnecessary, the remaining part of the photo will be enlarged to fill the rest of the photo paper.
If you would rather print a smaller picture than lose quality, this is possible with our printing service at myFUJIFILM. Just opt for a smaller size when uploading your photo (something closer to 4”x4” than 8’’x6”).
How do I make a picture bigger without losing quality?
Due to the constraints that pixels place on photo enlarging, it’s rather difficult to make a photo bigger without losing some quality. Of course, the exception is if you took a photo with an extremely high resolution that allows you to go as big as you want. Unless you’re an experienced photographer with great kit, you’re probably going to be faced with the size VS quality dilemma at some point in your life.
If you want to make a picture bigger but are determined not to lose any noticeable quality at all, we would recommend only going as big as your resolution allows. This might be a disappointing answer, but if you want a photo that’s pleasing to look at, it’s worth reflecting on how much you really want that large print. On your next photo-taking trip, try to capture shots at a higher resolution so you don’t run into the same issue.
If you have your heart set on making a specific photo bigger (but quality is still a must), you can try the scanning trick. Get your photo printed at the maximum size you can before it loses quality. Then, scan it with a scanner that has a high DPI (this stands for ‘dots per inches’, which is a measure of the number of pixels the scanner will assign to each inch of the print). If your scanner has a great DPI (and some at-home devices have a fantastic 1200 DPI), you’ll be able to scan your photo and reprint at a much larger size while keeping quality in check.
No scanner at home? There are lots of professional scanning shops where you can take your photos. The staff there will be able to give you information about the DPI of their scanner and what this means for the extent to which you can enlarge your print.
A note on taking photos
With all this talk of high resolutions, it’s important to note that the best way to ensure you have a good resolution for the size of print you want is to plan ahead. It is tedious to try to change the resolution of an existing photo, but easy to take the original photo at the highest resolution possible.
It’s always better to have more ‘information’ than to lack it. If you want to discard unnecessary parts of your image later, like reducing the size, it’s simple enough to do this with Photoshop or free photo editing software.
Also, look into whether you are shooting in RAW or JPEG, as this makes a difference. Lots of professional photographers opt for RAW because it allows them to capture the greatest amount of detail. Because these files are stored as uncompressed raw data, they take up more space to store — but the upside is that they retain all the image data. When you shoot in JPEG, the images get processed and compressed into smaller files that are easy to store and share. This is handy in some instances, but it won’t give you as much freedom when it comes to editing.
Bear in mind that you won’t be able to print RAW files using Fujifilm software — you’ll need to save your files as JPEG, TIFF or BMP files.
Streamline your online photo printing with myFUJIFILM
At myFUJIFILM, we’re a one-stop shop for all your photography needs. We specialise in providing top-quality photo prints on Fujifilm’s photographic paper. We can print in a wide range of sizes, giving you endless possibilities for displaying your images. Our team can help you create anything from acrylic prints, aluminium prints and canvases to posters, photo collage prints, and photo books. We can even make photo calendars and wall art prints.
And if you need a thoughtful, last-minute gift, we offer super fast delivery on personalised photo prints so you can get them within two days.
Whether you’re printing memories for yourself or creating a stunning personalised photo gift for a friend, take a look at our other blog articles for more inspiration.