What are the standard photo sizes? Standard photo sizes

A photograph is one moment of life that remains in memory for many years. No matter what happens, but when you take a photograph in your hand, time seems to return back. Yes, you can’t return the past, but no one forbids remembering!

No one can imagine their life without pictures. Every important event should be captured on photo paper. Even those who don't like taking photos for their own use can't refuse them on documents. Sooner or later, everyone goes to a photo studio in order to take a passport photo or make a portfolio.

What are the sizes of photos for printing?

Due to different purposes, there are several image sizes, each of which performs a separate function. What are the sizes of photos for printing? Since the popularity of such a procedure is growing, accordingly, there are a lot of formats. We are talking about small sizes - this is a 3 by 4 passport photo or a regular photo album 10 by 15 or 13 by 18.

Photography is not a vital thing. You can live without pictures, because all memories are stored in memory. But, thanks to advanced technologies, we still have the opportunity to look at the captured moments and remember the moments. It's amazing that ideas like this pop up in our heads.

To prolong the happy moment, they take a snapshot, whether it is a wedding or the birth of a child - everything is captured. After that, you just need to print the received photos and put them in your album. More recently, people used film, and now digital technology has forced it out of the market. A big plus of progress is that the resulting image is visible immediately, that is, there is no need to wait and think about how the photo turned out.

Photos for documents

The most common type of photo is a passport photo, which has several requirements that must be met. One of the main ones is a 3 by 4 photograph. The size must comply with the regulations, otherwise the documents will not be accepted for consideration.

When submitting a package of documents, state authorities require two photographs. Such a photo is taken within a few minutes and is completely ready for further use. In addition to the passport, they are often photographed for student documents or a driver's license. A 3 x 4 photo is printed, the size of which is identical to the passport version. Although it should be borne in mind that sometimes a 3.5 by 4.5 photograph is accepted for a passport.

The photo salon knows all the standards, so do not worry. It is enough just to tell which document you need to take a photo. After all, photographers know what sizes photos are for printing. Professionals in their field have a full hand, every day dozens of people pass through them.

amateur photos

Among the common species, there is also an amateur photo. These are simple photographs that depict both people and nature. The most popular format is a 10 x 15 photograph. A standard size in which the outlines of a person or object are clearly visible. Ideal for photo album decoration.

These are not all formats. But the question arises, what are the sizes of photographs for printing. There are quite a lot of them, for example, you can highlight a picture of A4 landscape format, and speaking the language of a photographer, then 21 by 30 centimeters. This size is used for large pictures, usually for the purpose of creating a portfolio, since all the features of a person are clearly visible on it. The 13 x 18 photo is also in demand - this is a slightly smaller format. Usually used to decorate a portrait.

How do pixels affect photo quality?

Pixels are the smallest unit of size, in other words, the number of dots in an image. When there are few such points, the image is blurry, with fuzzy contours. A large number of pixels makes the photo bright and clear, it can be enlarged to almost any size, for example, make it 21 by 30.

The quality of the photo and its size depend on the maximum resolution. Today, there are almost no devices left that take low-quality pictures. Since even the most ordinary phones have a camera with two pixels in their arsenal.

This indicator determines in what format the photo can be printed in the future. Although such a standard size as 10 by 15, in any case, it turns out. The fewer pixels, the worse the quality of the photo. If the most ordinary photo can be easily arranged in a size of 10 by 15, then, for example, it will not be possible to enlarge it, since the picture will not be clear.

If you want to take a high-quality professional photo, you need to contact a photo studio. The photographer, like no one else, knows how to properly direct the light, will help you choose a beautiful pose. A professional will adjust the photo to the required format and print it on photo paper.

How to print a photo of the required size?

There are also two options for printing a photo. Although now this service is in less demand, as many people are just on the computer. But, you can see that these are completely different feelings. After all, when you hold a photograph in your hand, as if you are getting closer to the displayed moment.

In order to hold a photo in your hand, you need to print it, and you can do this in two ways: at home or in the salon. At home, most often they print photos of a standard size of 10 by 15. But a photo of a larger format can not always be made of high quality, because it depends on the size of the photo paper and on the capabilities of the printer.

Why so many photo sizes?

The fact is that in life there are different events that I would like to remember for a long time. The most common image format cannot convey the whole atmosphere. When you take a larger photo, for example, in a 21x30 format, you immediately become a participant in those happy moments.

Time runs restlessly forward, and thanks to the photo, a person remains unchanged. So you can experiment and arrange a picture in different formats, then see which photo will most harmoniously fit into an album or apartment interior.

- inkjet or less often laser. Also, we all know that there are certain popular photo sizes. But what are the standard photo sizes for printing? We will summarize them in a table in which we will list all the sizes of photographs for printing.

Quite often, having decided to print our pictures, we are faced with a problem and ask ourselves the question - what size should they be? Of course, most modern digital cameras automatically select the required photo resolution values, but it also happens that you need to print photos downloaded from the Internet or captured on your phone, what to do in this case?

First, let's answer the question - why should you know (and accordingly adhere to) standard photo sizes for printing? The point is that by inventing standard photo sizes, photo paper began to be made in the same size. Therefore, the correct ratio of the height and width of the photograph is very important. Otherwise, the photos will be stretched both in height and in width. The resolution of the image is also important - it affects the quality (clearness) of the image when printed.

Sizes of photos for printing are shown in the table

Where there is a standard or format, this is the aspect ratio that it is desirable to adhere to so that you do not have to crop or stretch the photo. The second column contains the dimensions of the photos in centimeters, the third in pixels, I think this is understandable.

Standard sizes photos have dimensions of 10.2 x 15.2 cm (highlighted in the table) - these are the usual photos for the album that we are used to seeing.

What if the image has a different size?

Suppose you compared the sizes of photos for printing, the table of which was presented above, and found out that your image has different sizes, what should you do in this case? If the aspect ratio is different, then a simple increase or decrease in centimeters is not enough. You will have to crop the image to the desired format.

How to quickly crop a photo to the desired size?

There are two main ways.

The first way is to use the simplest image editing program. Almost all versions of the Windows operating system have Paint program in the "Standard Programs" tab. Having opened the photo file in this program, you need to drag the border of the picture on the right or bottom and thus crop the photo to the desired size in pixels. The size of the image in pixels is shown at the bottom of the program window.

The second way is to use specialized image editing programs. Most often used Photoshop program She is the most popular and the most professional. I note that we just need to fit the photo to the desired format (depending on the version of the program, the location of this button may change - just squeak it on the toolbar).

Many of us love to take pictures. The variety and availability of digital cameras make photography a popular pleasure to capture the bright, colorful moments of our lives. At the same time, the high quality of the resulting photographs does not guarantee the same quality when printing digital images on standard roll photo paper. In this material, I will tell you what sizes of photographs are for printing, give tables of available formats, and also give a number of examples that allow you to clearly understand the features of different photo sizes.

Digital Photographer's Thesaurus

To understand what are the sizes of photographs for printing and what their specifics, we need, first of all, to understand the basic concepts necessary to understand the process of digital printing.

Linear photo size– photo dimensions in millimeters (width-height).

Photo parameters in pixels- the dimensions of your photo, expressed in the number of pixels (width-height).

Pixel- the smallest element of the image, usually a point of a rectangular or round shape, and a certain color. An image is made up of hundreds and thousands of such pixels, which are counted both horizontally (width) and vertically (height). For example, an image size of 1181x1772 (usually corresponding to the standard photo size of 10x15) is 1181 pixels wide by 1772 pixels high.

Moreover, the more such dots-pixels in your image, the usually it is of better quality, with better detail and drawing of objects.

Side proportions- the ratio of the dimensions of the sides of the photo (for example, 1:1, 2:3, 3:4, and so on). The parameter shows how much one side is shorter or longer than the other.

Bitmap (bitmap)- an image consisting of such pixels.

DPI- (abbreviation for "dots per inch" - dots per inch) - a parameter used to characterize the resolution of printing photos, that is, the number of dots per inch (an inch is 2.54 cm). The basic print standard is 150 dpi, the optimal one is 300 dpi. Accordingly, the higher the DPI, the higher the print quality of the existing digital photo.

Standard (format) photo- this is a template aspect ratio of a photograph, which is important to adhere to in order to obtain the final image on paper.

Why is it important to consider standard photo sizes?

In the vast majority of cases, the digital images you receive will be printed on photo paper that has standard sizes. If the proportions of digital images and the selected photo paper sizes do not match, the photos may come out stretched, not clear, lose image quality, or have other undesirable consequences for you.

Therefore, it is important to compare standard photo print sizes with the pixel dimensions of your digital photos in order to select the optimal print format.

Popular photo sizes for printing with a table of formats

The generally accepted standard for a photo is 10 by 15 cm. At the same time, the size of a proportional digital photo is usually slightly larger (for example, 10.2 by 15.2 cm), and the size in pixels of this photo will be 1205 by 1795 pixels.

Other formats are shown in the table below:

If you plan to work with large format printing, then it has fairly broad requirements for a digital image:

If you know the dpi parameter and the number of pixels of your photo, then using the formula below, you can calculate the required dimensions of the sides of your photo:

In this formula:

x - the size of one side of the photo we need in centimeters;
r – resolution of the photo side in pixels;
d - 2.54 cm (standard inch value);
dpi - usually 300 (less often - 150).
For example, let the image width be 1772 pixels and dpi=300.
Then 1772*2.54/300=15.00 cm across the print width.

Popular photo formats

In addition to the classic size 10 by 15 (A6 format) that I already mentioned, there are other popular photo sizes for printing. Among them, I would highlight the following:

Conclusion

This article provided standard photo sizes for printing, popular photo formats, as well as a convenient formula for calculating the optimal size of the sides of a photo. I recommend sticking to the formats I have given, this guarantees the quality of printed photos, and hence the visual pleasure of viewing them.

Standard paper sizes

(GOST 5773-76)

Row A		Row B		Row C
Designation	mm	Designation	mm	Designation	mm
A0	841x1189	B0	1000x1414	C0	917x1297
A1	594x841	B1	707x1000	C1	648x917
A2	420x594	B2	500x707	C2	458x648
A3	297x420	B3	353x500	C3	324x458
A4	210x297	B4	250x353	C4	229x324
A5	148x210	B5	176x250	C5	162x229
A6	105x148	B6	125x176	C6	114x162
A7	74x105	B7	88x125	C7	81x114
A8	52x74	B8	62x88	C8	57x81
A9	37x52	B9	44x62	-	-
A10	26x37	B10	31x44	-	-
A11	18x26	B11	22x31	-	-
A12	13x18	B12	15x22	-	-
A13	9x13	-	-	-	-

North American Standard

popular name	ANSI classification	mm	inches	Aspect Ratio	Similar ISO format
letter	ANSI A	216x279	8.5x11	1:1,2941	A4
Legal		216x356	8.5x14	1:1,6471
Ledger	ANSI B	432x279	17x11	1,5455:1	A3
Tabloid	ANSI B	279x432	11x17	1:1,5455	A3
	ANSI C	432x559	17x22	1:1,2941	A2
	ANSI D	559x864	22x34	1:5455	A1
	ANSI E	864x1118	34x44	1:1,2941	A0

Series A

The largest standard size, A0, has an area of ​​one square meter and an aspect ratio of 1:√2. The long side of the sheet has a length of approximately 1.189 m, the length of the short side is the reciprocal of this value, approximately 0.841 m, the product of these two lengths gives an area of ​​1 m².

Dimension A1 is obtained by cutting sheet A0 along the short side into two equal parts, as a result of which the aspect ratio is preserved. This allows you to get one standard paper size from another, which was not possible with traditional sizes. Maintaining the aspect ratio also means that when scaling an image from one aspect ratio to another, the aspect ratio of the image is maintained.

Series B

In addition to the A series of formats, there are also less common formats of the B series. Sheets of format B have the same aspect ratio as series A. Only B0 has a width of 1 m. The area of ​​sheets of series B is the geometric average of the two subsequent sheets of series A. For example, B1 in size is between A0 and A1, with an area of ​​0.71 m². As a result, B0 has dimensions of 1000 × 1414 mm. The B series is almost never used in the office, it has a number of special applications, for example, many posters come out in these formats, B5 is often used for books, and these formats are also used for envelopes and passports.

Series C

Series C is used only for envelopes and is defined in ISO 269. The area of ​​sheets of series C is equal to the geometric mean of sheets of series A and B of the same number. For example, the area C4 is the geometric mean of the area of ​​sheets A4 and B, while C4 is slightly larger than A4, and B4 is slightly larger than C4. The practical meaning of this is that an A4 sheet can be inserted into a C4 envelope, and a C4 envelope can be inserted into a B4 heavy envelope.
C6 162 x 114 mm - the main postal envelope format of the Soviet period.

North American Standard

The American sizes currently in use are based on traditionally used sizes, and are defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The most commonly used formats in daily activities are "Letter", "Legal" and "Ledger"/"Tabloid". The source of the "Letter" format (8.5 × 11 inches or 216 × 279 mm) is a tradition and is not known for sure.
North American paper sizes are government standards in the United States and the Philippines (however, Filipino "legal" is 8.5 × 13 inches, which is different from American "legal"), and are also widely used in Canada, Mexico, and some countries in South America.
Unlike standard A4 paper, which is a geometric subset of the range of paper sizes based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard, the origin of "Letter" paper sizes is lost in tradition and not clearly documented. The American Timber and Paper Association claims that the measurements date back to the days of hand-made paper, and that an 11-inch page length is a quarter of the "average maximum arm length of an experienced worker." However, this does not explain the width or aspect ratio.

Publication formats

GOST (5773-76)

Large	Medium	Small	miniature	Babies
84x108/8	70x100/16	70x100/32	70x90/64	60x90/512
70x108/8	60x100/16	70x90/32	60x90/64	60x84/512
70x100/8	75x90/16	75x90/32	60x84/64	84x108/1024
60x90/8	70x90/16	60x90/32	60x70/64	70x108/1024
60x84/6	60x90/16	60x84/32	84x108/128	70x100/1024
84x108/16	60x84/16	60x108/32	70x108/128	70x90/1024
84x108/16	70x84/16	70x100/32	70x100/128	60x90/1024
90x100/16	70x75/16	84x108/64	70x90/128	60x84/1024
84x100/16	60x108/16	70x108/64	60x90/128
70x108/16	60x70/16	100x84/64	60x84/128
80x100/16	84x108/32		84x108/256
84x90/16	70x108/32		70x108/256
	84x100/32		70x100/256
	80x100/32		70x90/256
	84x90/32		60x90/256
			60x84/256
			84x108/512
			70x108/512
			70x100/512
			70x90/512

To determine the format of a book block, it is necessary to decompose the value of the sheet share (/16, /32, etc.) into two largest factors (16=4x4, 32=4x8), then divide the larger side of the sheet by a larger factor, the smaller one by a smaller factor .
For example: 84x108/32 => 32=4x8 => x => 21x13.5
If now subtract 1 cm from the larger value, and 0.5 cm from the smaller one, we get the format of the block after cropping (for publications with landscape print, subtract 1 cm from the smaller value, and 0.5 from the larger one).

Vintage formats of books and writing paper

check folio	paper size 43.2x61 cm
crown folio	book or paper format 25x38 cm
demy folio	paper size 28.5x44 cm
double folio	paper size 55.9x86.4 cm
double-double folio	paper size 83.8x111.8 cm
double imperial folio	paper size 38x56 cm
elephant folio	paper size 35.5x58 cm
extra-size folio	paper size 48.3x61 cm
foolscap folio	book or paper format 21.5x34 cm
foolscap long folio	writing paper format 16.5x40.6 cm
imperial folio	paper size 38x56 cm

crown quarto	book format 19x25 cm
demy quarto	book format 22x28.5 cm
double imperial quarto	printed paper format 73.7x114 cm
foolscap quarto	book format 17x21.5 cm

crown octavo	book format 13x19 cm; book format 14x20 cm; book height 20-25 cm
demy octavo	book format 14x22 cm
imperial octavo	book format: Brit. 19x25 cm; Amer. 21x29 cm
large post octavo	book format 13x21 cm

The format of the publication is the size of the book block (in length and width) after three-sided cropping.
The format is determined by the type and type of publication, its volume, circulation, the nature of the illustrative material placed in it, the reader's purpose, terms of use, etc.
The term "book format" apparently arose in the era of machine production, when it became necessary to unify the size of the book for its mass production and commodity exchange.
The results of measurements of dozens of Russian books of the 11th-13th centuries showed that there were no stable sizes. The format of the future book was chosen by the scribe, based on its purpose, as well as in accordance with the tastes of the customer and his own desire. The altar gospels, richly illustrated and large books (prologues, collections, etc.) were made, as a rule, of a large size (the height of the book block was more than 30 cm). Such, for example, are the oldest manuscript books: the Ostromir Gospel (1056-1057), Svyatoslav's Izbornik (1073), the twelve volumes of the "Great Menaion Chetiy" (1547-1563), written on the initiative of Metropolitan Macarius, and others. Books intended for everyday use , had relatively small formats, were distinguished by the simplicity of their external and internal appearance. An example of this kind of books is the Arkhangelsk Gospel (1092) - a cheap book, rewritten, apparently, by order of the parish church of a peasant churchyard (format - small four).
With the beginning of the use of paper for the manufacture of books, the size (share) of a paper sheet was taken as the basis for their formats. However, there were still no firmly established paper formats, since they depended on the dimensions of the grid for casting the paper sheet, which were set arbitrarily by the paper manufacturer. Over time, master wallets settled on two main sizes: the smaller one - 30x50 cm; the larger one is 50x70, which, however, were definitely not respected.
To designate the format of Russian handwritten books, a conventional unit of measurement was used - ten (Persian dest - right hand).

Format	Size	Format	Size	Format	Size	Format	Size	Format	Size
A0	841х1189	B0	1000x1414	C0	916x1296	K5	145x215	C54	185x260
A1	594x841	B1	707х1000	C1	648x916	K6	125x125	C65	114x229
A2	420x594	B2	500x707	C2	458x648	K7	90x140	K65	125x189
A3	297х420	B3	354х500	C3	324x458	K8	150x150	DL (E65)	110x220
A4	210x297	B4	250x353	C4	229x324	K9	225x225	E4	220x320
A5	148x210	B5	177x250	C5	162x229	K10	175x175
A6	105x148	B6	125x177	C6	114x162
A7	74x105	B7	88x125	C7	81x114
A8	52x74	B8	62x88	C8	57х81
A9	37х52	B9	44x62	C9	40x57
A10	26x37	B10	31х44	C10	28x40

DIN formats (metric)

Format	Width x length in mm
1A	1189x1682
A0	841х1189
A1	594x841
A2	420x594
A3+	305x457
A3	297х420
A4	210x297
A5	148x210
A6	105x148

Notes:

1. The area of ​​A0 format is 1 sq.m.

2. The "+" sign in the format designation indicates the presence of an allowance compared to standard sizes. The amount of allowance may be different.

3. For roll paper, the width corresponds to the narrow edge of the format, i.e. A1 means a 594mm wide roll. The length of a standard roll for copiers is 175 meters.

Anglo-American Standards Formats

Format	Width x length in mm	Width x length in inches	analogue standard DIN
A	228x305	9x12	A4
B	305x457	12x18	A3
C	457x610	18x24	A2
D	610x914	24x36	A1
E	914x1219	36x48	A0

Formats of other international standards.

Format	Width x length in mm	Width x length in inches
B4 (German format)	250x353	9.8x13.9
B5	176x250	6.9x9.8
B3	353x500	13.9x19.7
B4 (Japanese format)	257x364	10.1x14.3
B4 (American standard)	254x356	10.0x14.0
Draft	254x406	10.0x16.0
Folio	210x330	8.3x13.0
Foolscap	216x356	8.5x13.0
Foolscap (UK)	203x330	8.0x13.0
Legal	216x356	8.5x14.0
Gov. Legal	203x330	8.0x13.0
Legal (Argentinian)	220x340	8.7x13.4
Letter/US Quatro	216x279	8.5x11.0
Gov. letter	203x267	8.0x10.5
Officio	216x317	8.5x12.5

I propose to consider what kind of animals these are - JPG and RAW photo formats, what they affect and when you should pay attention to them. What is the photo size and file weight, how they are measured and what they depend on.

Almost all photo cameras can save photos in JPG format (even phone and tablet cameras). In all SLR and non-SLR cameras, as well as in advanced compacts, in addition to JPG, there is at least RAW and RAW +, and sometimes TIFF.

To deal with the formats, first you need to agree on what is meant by the concepts of "size" of a photo and "weight" of a file (photo). I propose to consider these concepts on more tangible objects ... for example, on goodies.

1 | What is a pixel:

The size of objects is measured in meters, the size of a photo is measured in pixels (px).

If you measure the size of this vase with berries, then it will be about 10 centimeters high and 13 centimeters wide ... approximately. That is, we are accustomed to measuring objects in centimeters (meters, kilometers, and so on). If we talk about the photo of the same vase, then the original size of the photo is 7360 pixels (px) wide by 4912 pixels (px) high. This is the maximum photo size my Nikon camera is capable of. To place this photo on the site, the size of the photo is reduced to 1200px by 798px (why, I'll tell you a little later).

What is a pixel? Photographs taken with digital cameras or digitized on a scanner are a combination of tiny colored squares - pixels. If you zoom in on any photo, you will see these pixels. The more such pixels in the photo, the more detailed the picture.

A fragment of the photo magnified a thousand times - squares of pixels are visible.

2 | Is it possible to convert pixels to centimeters:

This is exactly what happens when you need to print photos on paper. One more indicator is needed here - the pixel density (resolution) that the printer (or other photo printing machine) can print. The printing standard for photographs is 300 dpi (dpi is the number of dots per inch). For example, for printing in beautiful glossy magazines, photos with a resolution of 300 dpi are used.

So that you do not puzzle over dividing the photo size by resolution and do not convert inches to centimeters, any photo viewing and editing program (for example, Photoshop) has a function to view the size of the photo image in centimeters. You will need it to understand what is the maximum size of a photo in good quality (with a resolution of 300 dpi) that you can print on paper or other material.

For example, this photo of Frangipani tropical flowers can be printed in the size of 61 cm by 32 cm.

Photo size in pixels and centimeters in Photoshop

To find out the size of a photo in pixels and centimeters in Photoshop, you need to press the key combination Alt + Ctrl + I or go to the menu Image (Image) Image size (Image size).

Let's get back to the reality of digital photos - to pixels and photo sizes in pixels. What happens if you reduce the number of pixels in a photo? The answer is that the quality of the photo will deteriorate. For example, I took the photo of the same bowl of berries at the beginning of the article and reduced the size of the photo to 150 pixels wide. With such a decrease, the program destroys some of the pixels. The photo has become miniature:

Now let's try to "stretch" the photo to the entire page:

Stretched picture looks blurry and fuzzy

As you can see, the detail is not the same, since some of the pixels (and with them the details) are missing.

Of course, if you use this thumbnail as a small icon or a small image in a Power Point presentation, it will look quite normal, but for printing in a half-page magazine it is clearly not suitable.

3 | What photo size (how many pixels) is optimal:

If you plan to someday print a photo, then save photos in the highest possible resolution, which only your camera will allow (carefully study the instructions for your camera to correctly adjust the photo size).

In some cases, you need to reduce the size of photos. As I wrote above, for the site, I reduce the photo size to 1200 pixels on the long side. If you upload a photo in full size, the pages of the site will take a very long time to load, and many visitors may not like this (not to mention Google and Yandex search engines).

The size of photos is measured in pixels (px). The size of the photo on the monitor screens depends on the number of pixels, and what size the photo can be printed.

4 | File size or "photo weight":

Now let's deal with the "weight of the photo". It so happened historically that there is a lot of confusion in this matter and the file size is quite often called the "photo weight", which is more convenient than correct. File sizes are measured in megabytes (MB) or kilobytes (KB). And here it is worth remembering that, unlike kilograms, where 1 kg = 1000g, 1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes.

How it looks in practice: imagine the situation that your camera has a memory card that says 64GB (gigabyte). If you look at how many exactly these bytes are there (right-click "properties" on the computer), it turns out that there are 63567953920 bytes on this memory card and this is equal to 59.2 GB. How big your camera creates files will determine how many photos will fit on that memory card. For example, I have 830 files with photos in RAW format (read about formats below).

What determines the file size:

• Firstly, on the size of the photo (what is measured in pixels): the file with the first photo of the berries (photo size 7360x4912 px) is 5.2 MB, and it, reduced to 150 px, will "weigh" 75.7 KB (in 69 times less).
• Secondly, from the format (JPG, TIFF, RAW), which you can read about below.
• Thirdly, the file size (or "photo weight") depends on the number of details: the more details, the "heavier" the photo (which is most relevant for the JPG format).

Lots of details - more photo weight

For example, in this photo with monkeys from Sri Lanka, there are many small clear (in the language of photographers, "sharp") details and the file size with this photo is 19.7MB, which is significantly larger than berries in a vase on a white background (5.2MB).

If you ask what size photo I can print from a 2MB photo. No one can answer you until they know the number of pixels. And it’s better, of course, to also look at the photo, since some craftsmen like to get a photo from the depths of the Internet, increase the number of pixels programmatically, and then want to print it on the cover of a magazine. It turns out as in the example above with a stretched photo of a vase 150 px wide.

File size (often referred to as "photo weight") is measured in megabytes (MB) or kilobytes (KB) and depends on the format, pixel size, and detail of the photo.

5 | Photo formats:

And, finally, we come to the issue of image formats and the type of file compression, which also determine the size of the photo file.

Almost all photo cameras can save photos in JPG format(even the cameras of phones and tablets). This is the most common image format and is "understood" by all computers and image viewers. In JPG format, photos can be uploaded to social networks, posted on a blog, added to Word, Power Point files, and so on. JPG can be processed in Photoshop, Lightroom and other image editing programs.

From my practice: if I want to take a photo for a social network and quickly upload it, then I either take a picture on my phone or put the jpg file format in my camera.

The thing to remember about jpg format is that it is a compressed format and it has compression levels. The higher the compression ratio, the smaller the file size by reducing the detail and quality of the photo. Therefore, multiple editing and re-saving (re-compression) of the same photo in jpg format is not recommended.

When saving a file in jpg format, the compression level is selected (example from Photoshop).

In all SLR and non-SLR cameras, as well as in advanced compacts, in addition to JPG, there is at least RAW, and often also TIFF.

A little theory:

• TIFF(Eng. Tagged Image File Format) - a format for storing raster graphic images (including photographs). TIFF has become a popular format for storing high-color images. It is used in printing, widely supported by graphic applications.
• RAW(English raw - raw, raw) - a digital photograph format containing raw data received from a photomatrix (the thing that replaced film in digital cameras).

Personally, I never photograph in TIFF format. I can’t even think of why I need this if there is RAW. I can use uncompressed TIFF to save photos that I still plan to finalize in Photoshop.

6 | Advantages and disadvantages of the RAW format:

I almost always have a RAW format in my camera, since I'm going to process (edit) photos in Lightroom or Photoshop. RAW has a number of significant disadvantages:

• There is no way to view files without prior conversion. That is, to view photos in RAW format, you need a special program that supports this image format.
• Larger file size than when saving in JPEG (from my Nikon D800 camera, the file size with a photo in RAW format is 74-77 MB). This means fewer photos will fit on the flash drive.
• RAW cannot be uploaded to social networks, a blog, and sometimes even sent by mail. First, RAW needs to be converted with a RAW converter (eg Adobe Camera Raw) that supports the file type of your camera model.

Why do professional photographers often prefer RAW over JPG? Because RAW:

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• gives more options for image correction: white balance, contrast, saturation, brightness and noise level,
• allow you to more accurately correct images without the appearance of defects,
• allows fine correction of lens imperfections (vignetting, chromatic aberration).

So, if you plan to carefully process pictures in Photoshop or Lightroom, subtly feeling "artifacts" and halftones, "overexposure" and "dips" in the shadows, then shoot in RAW. Just remember that in order to get a good result, you will need to understand the settings and operation of RAW converters. Think about whether you need this headache? Maybe you should shoot in JPG and devote more time to rest, and not to the computer?