Photo Quality

We know that having a photo printed makes it that extra special. Your precious photo can live in your home and be admired, not stuck on your phone or in a Facebook album! 

 

Most popular smartphones come with impressive cameras, and they can produce some high-quality images, but how can we find out how these will print or how big we can print it? 

 

We have developed some rough guidelines to help you determine if the photo you want to turn into a Popic photo print will give you the result you want.

 

Note: Images shown in this guide are simulated for explanation as to how the image will vary. They have been optimized for web.

Our pre-set minimum requirements

We want to make sure that your personalised print is of the highest quality; therefore, we have set the minimum requirements of your photos uploaded to 1000px by 1000px. If your image doesn't meet this minimum requirement, a warning will appear. 

 

(Screen Shot)

 

If you see this warning, our system will prevent you from using this photo. We have set this restriction as we cannot guarantee your product's quality, and we want to produce the very best for you. You will need to upload another photo or a higher quality version of that same photo.

 

So, what is a high-quality photo?

We don't want to get too technical here because, let's face it, not all of us are budding photographers! The easiest way to explain high-quality photos is with examples. 

 

If you have ever tried to print an image you may have downloaded from Facebook or Instagram, you may have noticed that not every photo prints out correctly. It's an easy mistake to make as what looks good on your smartphone or screen might look blurry or pixelated (kind of like looking blocky) when blown up to poster size. This distortion happens when there is a resolution issue.

 

Every image or photo has a resolution. It's just the number of pixels it is wide multiplied by the number of pixels it is tall. 

 

Note: When we talk about our examples, we refer to photos of clearly taken. Photos that have been taken in low light or out of focus etc, will not adhere to these same rules and will most likely result in a low-quality photo print no matter what. 

 

Examples of standard smartphone image resolutions

We have used some versions of iPhones to illustrate the number of pixel-sized photos taken with their cameras produced as their standard pixel size. 

 

(Iphone Graph)

 

Note: If you use this diagram, it is a guide only. The guide demonstrates photos taken on the same device, not one sent or downloaded from social media or other sources. Downloading images will distort the original image's resolution.

 

An example of how a photo will print

So, let's see how this all translates into photo quality. For this example, we will use an image taken from an iPhone 6s here.

 

(Iphone 6s Example)

 

Everything looks great on screen, but remember, we now need to print this in high resolution.

 

So we have taken this photo, and we have uploaded it to one of our posters.

 

(Image Blown up to 50%)

 

When uploaded to a medium-sized photo on our Popic posters, our system will blow it up to around 50% of its original pixel size. 

 

(Image Blown up to 75%)

 

When uploaded to a larger-sized photo on our Popic posters, our system will blow it up to around 75% of its original pixel size. 

 

Note: This is only a rough guide on how your image will be scaled as photo sizes on our products vary; we cannot provide specific examples. We recommend that you use this guide with your device or image pixel calculations and base it on a 75% scaled-up image as a maximum to ensure high-quality photo reproduction. 

 

Calculating the pixels of your image

So let's calculate your photos as we understand not everyone has an iPhone 6s, right? If you want to calculate your smartphone's maximum high-res print size, divide your image's horizontal and vertical pixels by 300.

 

So, in our example, the image taken on the iPhone 6s has a 12-megapixel camera. That means any photo taken with it, like the one above, will be 4032px by 3024px. Take these numbers and then divide them by 300, and you get 13.44 inches (34.13cm) wide by 10.08 inches (25.60cm), which is almost the size of an A4 and is a very decent larger size! 

 

Note: The calculations are based on inches, as this is the standard measurement conversion for pixels and guides. If you want to convert this into the metric measurement, multiply it by 2.54 to give you the cm size.

 

For example 13.44 inches ÷ 2.54 = 34.13cm

 

Cropping a part of your image

What if you only want a specific part of your image printed? Our system will let you crop your photos, so let's go through how this will affect your high res photo.

 

Let’s take our image from our iPhone 6s (4032 px by 3024px) and crop a portion of it to 2000px x 1500px.

 

(Example Photo cropped to 2000px x 1500px)

 

Now let's use this cropped image in our Popic poster.

 

(Cropped Image Blown up to 50%)

 

When uploaded to a medium-sized photo on our Popic posters, our system will blow it up to around 50% of its cropped pixel size. 

 

(Image Blown up to 75%)

 

When uploaded to a larger-sized photo on our Popic posters, our system will blow it up to around 75% of its original pixel size. 

 

Here they all are together so we can compare.

 

(Original cropped image next to 50% next to 75%)

 

You will see that you now must work to the crop sized measurements when an image is cropped and complete the pixel calculations accordingly. 

 

Tips for cropping

Whenever you are cropping an image, try to crop it evenly from all sides.

 

(Show image of photo being cropped from left and right)

 

Avoid cropping in too closely on a particular photo area, especially if it is shot from a distance.

 

(Show image of someone trying to crop into someones face from a big family portrait)

 

Whenever you are resizing an original image, you will always impact your image's resolution. So the less you do to it, the better result you will achieve! Remember that you will not be viewing your photos as closely as you do on a screen. You will admire them from a distance, hopefully for years to come.