Protocols For Canvas Size, Pixels / Inch, And Jpg Compression

Unless you accept that sufficient quality prints can be made at less than 300 ppi, your problem will not be resolved.

If you wish to stay with 300 ppi for printing, you could always limit print sizes to those that meet that quality standard (and uploads do not exceed 25MB), but if FAA and buyers are happy with prints below 300ppi, why not go with that?

You start with 100ppi

That way your image, at 4800 pixels X 10800 pixels will print at our largest sizes.

And it's under 25mb

And what Philip said

Hi Philip and Abbie,

Thank you very much for responding! I posted this on another thread because I wasn't sure if anyone was seeing this thread. It doesn't appear in the main discussion forum that I can see.

Phillip thank you for your recommendation. You said" Unless you accept that sufficient quality prints can be made at less than 300 ppi, your problem will not be resolved." Yes this is something that we have never encountered with a print service accepting print files lower than 300 PPI. Here is what I wrote in the other thread. Abbie Thank you for confirming what Phillip had initially suggested.

We found FAA / Pixels services because of the large canvas sizes available. We were very impressed with a print service highly dedicated to artists' work.
We also valued the variety of canvas, framed and metal prints available along with various options. We also valued a print process with mechanisms in place for high-quality prints. For example, guidelines outlined: “If you sell an image we will refuse to print if the image shows.......Pixellation, Blockiness, Bad cropping, Blurriness not in keeping with the image (ie not meant to be there)… etc” This brings confidence in a service that has attention to quality and detail.

What was surprising was the file size limit. With large canvas, sizes come increased PPI, and then increased file size.
300 DPI / PPI is an industry-standard for high-quality printing results. Generally without the proper pixel density in the source file will result in pixelation degradation, blurriness, and a high potential for low-quality prints. Occasionally there is flexibility with lower DPI / PPI. But 300 PPI is usually considered a minimum resolution.

The responses advised and advocated 100 PPI. This was surprising to us. In our experience, there has never been a job in production for myself or a client, or colleagues— lower than 300 PPI. This includes art, marketing work, TV & Film print work, etc. I decided to call around today and inquire with multiple services to see if the online digital printing market was different. They all require 300 PPI as a minimum. Some had file limits that were far high between 50-100 mg. Others had no file size limits.

My first instinct was to do the best we could with the compression. I had not even considered lowering the PPI to 100. As I said lower than 300 PPI usually produces low-quality results. Also, lowering compression (below JPG 10) could potentially create degradation and a lower quality image. But at least low compression still maintained a high enough pixel density to hopefully produce a decent quality print.

Is there something unique about the FAA / Pixels printing process that can achieve such high-quality results without degradation using such low PPI, low files size and compression?
We are very interested in using the service and want to ensure a high-quality result. But we are very concerned by the file size limit and the 100 PPI print protocol recommendation.

Thank you again for responding to my earlier posts! I appreciate all your time and sharing your expertise.

Hi,

We called around to more POD fine art drop shipping which require / recommend/ only accept 300 PPI. These providers also have larger file size upload abilities. 300 PPI is the industry standard. Searching basic print guidelines and technical specs on the internet will provide examples that 300 PPI is the minimum for a good quality print.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_density
"Industry standard, good quality photographs usually require 300 pixels per inch, at 100% size, when printed onto coated paper stock, using a printing screen of 150 lines per inch (lpi). This delivers a quality factor of 2, which is optimum. The lowest acceptable quality factor is considered 1.5, which equates to printing a 225 ppi image using a 150 lpi screen onto coated paper.”

FAA's dedication to artists and variety of options is very appealing. However the recommendation of 100 PPI for a potential loss in quality is concerning.

Will you just "listen" to the person who works here and to some of the artists that have been using FAA for years? (I have been here over 5 years and, while I don't set the world afire with sales, I have NEVER had a QC inquiry or a return. 100PX per inch works just fine - I have five 36x24 canvasses hanging in our home right now and have sold up to 40 x 60 in size.

Interesting: "We called around to more POD fine art drop shipping..." Evidently you did not call the POD competitor that starts with an "I" or you might have heard differently. I have been with "them" as an artist and an affiliate since they first launched their aff program over 12 years ago. They even have several of my photographs on Amazon - and there, too, I have never had a return or QC issue. Yup, all at 100 ppi.

Why am I here, then, you may ask? FAA has more varied product offerings, a much better support system, a much better website and sales funnel into and through the cart. At the other place my sales are primarily through what is displayed on Amazon (because we know they convert). FAA also has a helpful discussion group such as this one - where most people are willing to help with actual advice based on experience.

Your concerns have been answered by several folks. If you are so concerned then don't offer anything over a certain size here and then offer it on other sites at larger sizes.

Nothing will be changing here anytime soon with being able to use 100ppi nor the 25meg file size limit.

Good luck with your quest.

Jeffery T Johnson | Photo Captures by Jeffery
https://www.photocapturesbyjeffery.com/blog/2019/12/2019-holiday-shipping

Don't forget also that FAA offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee to buyers, so should someone not like a purchase, they can return it and get their money back. I doubt that happens very often, otherwise the business would have been bankrupt years ago!

You are way overthinking this and making it much more difficult on your self than it has to be.

Look at some of the top brands in the world that are using FAA. Some of these people are some of the best publishers in the world. Not to mention 500,000 members.

Just to mention a few:

The Norman Rockwell people (Curtices Publishing) and the New Yorker have been around for years!

Getty Images, National Geographic, The New York Post and on and on and on...

These people have the resources and the vested interest to do the research to know and to make sure that they are trusting their images to the right people.