Photography Cheat Sheet: How Many Megapixels Do You Need to Print?

Thinking of printing your favorite shots but not sure what your image size should be for the print size you want? Today’s photography cheat sheet will serve as your quick reference.

Finally thinking of getting some prints of your best snaps? Not too long ago, we shared a photography cheat sheet showing how big you can print your digital photo based on the resolution of your camera. If that seemed a little complicated for you, we found another useful and simplified version which instead lists down the recommended image sizes for the standard print sizes you can choose from.

The pixel to conversion chart below was put together by image editing tool and app maker PicMonkey. Understanding that print sizes can be confusing for those who are printing their photos for the first time, they made this chart — which we can consider as a photography cheat sheet — as simple enough to serve as a handy reference anytime you feel a print is in order.

The Camera Resolution x Print Size Chart we previously shared placed the emphasis on how big you can print a digital photo based on the resolution. But in this photography cheat sheet, we learn about the different standard sizes that are currently available in most print shops. Instead of worrying about the resolution, we can just resize our photos to the recommended image size and we’re ready to print at the size we want.

What if you’re printing at home? As with the previous photography cheat sheet, you only need to multiply your intended print size by 300 to get the pixel dimensions. However, this works best if your printer is set to 300 DPI, which is considered as the standard for high-quality prints.

Looking for more tips and tricks like this? Don’t forget to check out all the photography cheat sheets that we have so far!