It's 2005 and the official dawn of the new era of digital photography and picture sharing has evolved.

Photo Heck is happy to introduce our new services that offer outstanding quality and ease of use for customers to get premium quality prints on real photographic paper as easy - OR EASIER - as film.

We can accept almost all forms of digital camera media and make beautiful, glossy or matte, REAL photographs faster, better and CHEAPER than do-it-youself. Come on in and see a demonstration of what our new Consumer Terminal can do for you.

Also, please take a moment to visit our new Online Print Ordering service. It includes many interesting features that allow you to do a lot more with your photos such as archiving, building online albums, sharing photos and ordering photo gifts - and lower prices.

A Few Words about Picture Quality, Printing and Image Resolution

First and foremost is the main thing most people need to grasp is resolution and the relationship of DPI and image size. DPI (dots per inch) only has meaning if there is a size included. Especially with digital cameras there can be a huge difference in the sharpness and quality of a print by going from a 4X6 size print to an 8x12 when you've got a limited number of pixels to work with.

For instance:

300 dpi @ 8 X 10 inches would yield an image of 2400 X 3000 dot (or pixels) and a 20 meg file.

300 dpi @ 4 X 5 inches would yield an image of 1200 X 2000 pixels and a 5 meg file.

In both cases the image contains 300 dots per inch but have a vastly different number of pixels.

When you need an image scanned, you need to consider the most demanding application this image will ever be used for to determine how high a resolution scan you will need. Things can always be downsized but they can't be up-sized. It makes no sense to ask for the highest resolution possible, what you want, and what everyone wants is the best color and sharpness for a specific purpose. The standard rule of thumb, for the most part, is 300 DPI @ the size to be printed.

Resolution is everything when it comes to sharpness but doesn't mean what you see on the screen is the way it's going to print. Monitors are very different from each other when it comes to resolution but they all display an image the same way, pixel by pixel. Older monitors typically run at 640 x 480 pixels. A 4x6 image scanned at 100 pixels per inch would be 600 x 400 pixels and would just about fill the entire screen. On a newer monitor set to 1024 x 768 that same image would fill a little more than half the screen. On a Hi-Res monitor, set to 1280 x 1024 that same image would fill much less than half the screen. This line below here is 432 pixels across.

For decent printing an image needs to contain at least 200, but probably not more than 300, at the size it is going to be printed. Example: A 4x6 inch print at 200 pixels per inch would be 800 x 1200 pixels. That would most likely fill your entire screen and then some, but it would only make a decent 4x6 and even then not of the "highest" quality. At 300 pixels per inch we now have and image 1200 x 1800, now that will make an excellent 4x6 print and probably could go up to a 5x7. At this point a lot depends on the capabilities of the printer.

Aspect ratios of digital cameras are not always proportional to standard print sizes. The same is actually true for 35mm film. Therefore some prints may crop into the image. Resolutions and picture quality will significantly vary between different cameras. It is best to keep your cameras on the highest resolution setting for optimal print quality.

Considering the various types, formats, and operating systems of digital cameras and the media they use, we may experience difficulties when printing or downloading including, but not limited to the possibility of corrupt or lost files. By submitting digital medias to Photo Heck you agree to hold us harmless of any liability related to the handling of the camera or media.