# JPEG size and quality for customers?



## ecphoto (Apr 25, 2012)

What size and quality should I be exporting them as?
That is to say, what dimension and size to save at?

My images start at 18mp so should I keep that dimension and just shrink the JPEG size?

I use light room so it lets me specify.


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## KmH (Apr 25, 2012)

FWIW it's all one word, Lightroom.

18 MP is your camera's 'resolution'. Resolution is quantified by how many horizontal and vertical pixels there are, like 5,184 x 3,456 pixels. 

For electronic display, few devices can show that many pixels at 100%. I use a 24" computer display to edit photographs and it can only display 1600 x 1200 pixels at 100%.
So for most electronic displays the image automatically gets resized so it will fit the display.

Size can refer to 2 other different things - the file size, and the print size.

The higher the quality setting you use in Lightroom, the larger the file size will be, though JPEG is a compressed files type that has already had the original capture file size reduced at least 4:1.

Print size is determined by the PPI (Pixels-Per-Inch) value assigned to the JPEG file, but the client can change that setting. Note that, the PPI value has no effect on electronically displayed photos.

Of further concern when giving a client JPEG files is the aspect ratio of the photo.
Having an 18 MP camera, it is likely your camera makes photos that have a 3:2 aspect ratio (8x12). Unfortunately, some of the most popular image sizes have 5:4 (8x10) and 7:5 (5x7) aspect ratios, which means prints made to those sizes will crop away some portion of a 3:2 aspect ratio original.

If you give a client full resolution images, they can print big. A 5,184 x 3,456 photo can be printed at 51.84" x 34.56" if 100 PPI is assigned to the photo (51.84"x34.56" = 4.32 feet by 2.88 feet).

So if you want to control the size a client can have a decent print made, you would control the resolution.


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## DiskoJoe (Apr 25, 2012)

Full size. High quality. Always. Then crop as needed per client specifications.


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