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The Phoblographer Explains: Image Resolution to Upload to My Website

Chris Gampat
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02/01/2015
2 Mins read

Screen Shot 2015-01-27 at 7.59.14 PM

One of the most common questions that I used to get back when I used to teach workshops was about uploading images to a website. For the uninformed, it’s easy for one to think that the higher the resolution and the higher the quality, the better it will be for their website. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you’re going to print an image, 300dpi (dots per inch or pixels per inch in the case of ppi) is a great resolution. But if you’re uploading to the web, this can slowdown the servers because you’re unnecessarily making the image larger. Trust us, we would know since we went through a phase like this on our site, too.

Though the entire technical world is all about pixel peeping images, most of your clients won’t care to pixel peep. Instead, they’ll want to know what you can do for them when they look at the whole. In today’s world, you need to think about a couple of major factors in that case when it comes to image resolution and dimensions:

– Internet bandwidth

– Mobile devices

– Site layout

For many people, exporting JPEGs at 1000 pixels on the long side at 72dpi is more than sufficient. Putting an image on Facebook to market yourself and your business? That’s more than good enough of a size. In fact, you can even go as far down as 675 pixels on the long side if you don’t want anyone to really see your image at a larger size or download it to make a decent sized print from it.

When Apple first started to come out with Retina displays, we experimented with 125DPI, and actually found that many readers liked it. However, when it comes to our reviews we usually work with 72dpi and try to make sure our images are under 3.5MB to balance out quality, load time, details, etc. For the most part, it works out well but there are surely issues that arise. Exporting to 1000 pixels though alleviates any of that.

Uploading an image to Flickr, 500px or another service and don’t want someone downloading it? 1000 pixels on the long side is more than enough for someone to check out your image with no real problems at all.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.