Ever Been Asked to Send a High Resolution Image?
Sometimes a printer, graphic designer or website developer will ask you to send a photo as a high resolution file. Great quality photos will give your project a professional appearance. Conversely, poor-quality images will reflect negatively on the project's overall look.
The quality of an image depends on two things
- The original quality
- How it is transferred
Original Quality
One of the most common questions we get asked about image quality for websites is if photos taken on mobile phones are going to be good enough quality. The short answer is yes, but there are a two things to consider.
- Mobile vs Digital Camera
- Lighting, Focus and Framing
Mobile vs Digital Camera
Even though a mobile camera can produce a good enough quality photo for a professional looking website, print project or newsletter, a digital camera, with a good photographer, is likely to produce a better photo. Digital cameras have more control over things like aperture, shutter speed and focus. A good camera, in a professional photographer’s hands, will almost always get a better photo than one taken by an enthusiast on a mobile phone.
Lighting, Focus and Framing
Luck might produce a great photo from a mobile camera, but planning, preparation and good photography skills are more likely to produce a photo that is feature image worthy. A blurred photo or one that has a messy background or a photo where the main subject is poorly lit, does not make a good image for your project, regardless of what camera it was taken with.
How it is Transferred
Often not much thought is given to how an image is transferred to your graphic designer, printer or website developer, yet this can significantly impact on the images fitness for purpose.
The reason why we come across poor quality transfer of photos is because mobile phone cameras are ubiquitous – they are universal and ever-present. Almost everyone has a mobile phone and all mobile phones have cameras. We’re all use to uploading our photos, from our phones, to Facebook, Instagram or texting or adding them to our What’s App chat. Many of us don’t know how to upload our photos to our desktop computers. But that is the first step in getting photos to your designer.
What Not To Do
Here’s several things we commonly come across that we ask you not to do
- Texting photos
- Sending photos via email or What’s App via the phone
- Sending photos via email from a desktop that were previously transferred via phone
- Taking screenshots
- Downloading from Facebook
- Cropping or manipulating the image
- Sending the image as a pasted image in a Word document
What To Do
OK, so now we’ve covered off what not to do, where does that leave you?
Here’s a few tips that will hopefully help.
Uploading Photos to a Desktop
Uploading photos and managing image files on our computer might very well become a lost art. But if you’re responsible for starting or maintaining an image library for your business or organisation, this skill set is well worth having.
The old fashioned way of uploading a photo to your desktop (or laptop) computer was to connect a cable to your phone and with the two devices connected, the photo is transferred across. This may still be the best way for you, depending on your circumstances. Here's a YouTube video tutorial on how to upload your photos from an andoid phone to a PC or laptop.
Most often the method used now will be via AirDrop (iPhone / Mac) or Nearby Share or File Sharing (Android / PC).
You’ll need to be familiar with Wi-Fi or Blutooth and your own device and computer to master this.
Uploading your photo, taken on your phone, or with a digital camera, directly to your desktop or laptop computer will not compress the image. The photo will maintain its original size and resolution 😁.
From Desktop to Designer
Once you’ve got the image on your desktop or laptop, you can now email it (from the computer not from a phone) to your designer. If you feel it is too big for email, or there are too many images to transfer, consider using We Transfer.
We Transfer
We Transfer is free to use. You do not need to create an account or have a log in and password (although this is an option). If you’d like to send files without creating an account, choose the “I just want to send files” option.
