Help: about prints

The Gallery print process and paper

The Kodak Gallery uses the latest printing technology available to deliver high-quality photographic prints from your digital photos.

We print your photos on high-quality Kodak paper, a resin-coated, silver-halide colour paper optimised for digital printers. A light source inside our digital printers exposes the photographic paper pixel by pixel. This process mimics traditional photography, in which light from the subject exposes photographic film inside a camera.

Archival quality

In photography, the term "archival quality" suggests that prints are durable and chemically stable. The prints you order from the Gallery have the same archival quality as prints made from 35-mm film.

Print quality

At the Gallery, providing you with the highest quality prints is our priority. A yellow warning symbol alert appears in the basket next to any image that is below the minimum recommended print resolution. This warning symbol indicates that the print may be blurry, washed out or pixelated in the size you chose.

Although the Gallery will print any of your photos to the size you choose, some photos - depending on the number of pixels in the image - just look better when printed at a specific size. Use the following general guidelines when sizing images to aspect ratios.

To get high-quality prints no matter what the size, your photos should meet the following minimum recommended image resolution requirements. If your photo has a resolution below our recommendations, your prints may be low quality.

Print Size	Minimum recommended megapixels for print size	Minimum recommended resolution (pixels)
Wallet	0.1	360 x 240
9 x 13 cm	0.6	360 x 720
10 x 15 cm	0.6	930 x 620
13 x 18 cm	0.7	1008 x 720
20 x 25 cm	1.3	1280 x 1024
20 x 30 cm	1.3	1280 x 1024
30 x 45 cm	1.8	1600 x 1200
40 x 60 cm	1.8	1600 x 1200
50 x 75 cm	2.2	1800 x 1200

Also see Understanding digital image resolution.

Print quality from your camera phone

Since most photos taken by camera phones are low-resolution images, passport-size prints are a good option. If you would like to order larger prints, you can use the Gallery's special category of borders called Fone prints. These thick borders are designed to keep your low-resolution images looking good when printed at a 6 x 4" size.

Sizing images to aspect ratios

The aspect ratio of a photo is the relationship between its height and width. For example, a square image has an aspect ratio of 1:1 because the width and height are equal.

Aspect ratio is important when printing a photo. As long as the relationship between your image and the chosen print size is standard for the height and width of the photo, the entire image will fit on the print. If the dimensions of the photo are too tall or too wide or square, the image will not occupy all of the space on the print.

The following aspect ratios are standard:

Print Size	Aspect Ratio
Wallet	1:1.5
9 x 13 cm	1:1.4
10 x 15 cm	1:1.5
13 x 18 cm	1:1.4
20 x 25 cm	1:1.25
20 x 30 cm	1:1.5
30 x 45 cm	1:1.5
40 x 60 cm	1:1.5
50 x 75 cm	1:1.5

The Gallery uses a technique called Zoom & Trim to automatically adjust a photo's dimensions to fit the desired print size.

You can adjust the aspect ratio and add custom effects such as white borders or digital frames in any standard imaging-editing application. See Converting images to JPEG

Avoiding unwanted cropping

If your photo is too wide, too tall or square, it will not fit the standard print sizes. To remedy this, the Gallery's photo development laboratory (like traditional photo labs) uses the Zoom & Trim technique to automatically fit your image to the print size you ordered.

To turn off Zoom & Trim globally for all of your print orders:

Go to "My Account" > "Advanced Print Options".
Select Zoom & Trim Off.

To turn off Zoom & Trim for a specific print in your order:

From the basket, click "Adjust cropping" under the print that you want to change.
Uncheck the box next to Zoom & Trim.

To crop photos in albums you have created, use the Crop feature of our Edit & Borders tool.

To minimise cropping, make sure your photo has the proper aspect ratio before you upload it for printing.

Tip: Each time you trim a photo, some resolution will be lost.

Please email Customer Service with any questions you may have.