How Big Can You Print Pictures From Your Digital Camera?

Too many times people have come to me after a once in a lifetime trip, having taken pictures with their digital camera, to find out that they did not have enough image resolution to print the photos at the size they desired. It is a shame to take the pictures of a lifetime and then not be able to print them at the size you want.

To keep this from happening, you should plan ahead;

1. Take enough batteries to power your camera.
   

2. Take enough storage to hold all of the pictures you take. SD cards can be swapped out one for one. Flash drives, external hard drive, etc require cables and computer to transfer images from your camera.
   

3. Know how large you want to be able to print your images and save them in the format that will support your needs.

Here is a guide to required file sizes for printing on inkjet printers. – What file size do you need? Use the table below to determine how many pixels you need to have in order to create the size document you want.

Image size Pixels Virtual Size of Scan	Mpixel Rating	Print Size (in) at 200ppi	Print Size (in) at 300ppi
640×480	0.3	3.2×2.4	2.1×1.6
1,024×768	0.8	5.1×3.8	3.4×2.5
1,280×960	1.2	6.4×4.8	4.2×3.2
1,504×1,000	1.5	7.5×5.0	5.0×3.0
1,632×1,224	2.0	3.3×6.1	5.4×4.1
2,000×1,312	2.6	10.0×6.6	6.7×4.4
2,240×1,488	3.3	11.2×7.4	7.5×5.0
2,275×1,520	3.5	11.4×7.6	7.6×5.1
2,272×1,704	3.9	11.4×8.5	7.6×5.7
2,590×1,920	5.0	13.0×9.6	8.6×6.4
3,008×2,000	6.0	15.0×10.0	10.0×6.7
4,256×2,848	12.1	21.3×14.2	14.2×9.5
4,536×3,024	13.7	22.7×15.1	15.1×10.1
5,782×3,946	22.8	22.7×15.1	19.3×13.2

Some professional services suggest lower resolutions for image sizes, so you can get away with making your images bigger.

For a 4” x 6” print the image resolution should be 640×480 pixels minimum.
For a 5” x 7” print the image resolution should be 1024×768 pixels minimum.
For a 8” x 10” print the image resolution should be 1536×1024 pixels minimum.
For a 16” x 20” print the image resolution should be 1600×1200 pixels minimum.
For a 20” x 30” print the image resolution should be 1600×1200 pixels minimum.