An Exhaustive Guide to Standard Photo Sizes

Published by Color Experts International July 4, 2024

Standard Photo Sizes: An Overview

Right at the outset, let me tell you that there isn’t just one standard photo size. Rather, ideal photo sizes differ on the purpose of photography. What is a standard photo size for your website isn’t the same for your wall décor.

Likewise, standard photo sizes for social media posts, photo frames, promotional designs, and official documents are all different. So, depending on what purpose you want to serve with a particular, you have to adjust the size of the photo accordingly.

Let’s take a gander at some of the standard photo sizes for printing —

3×2
4×4
4×6
5×7
8×8
11×14
12×12
8×10
5×15
12×36
8×24
16×20
20×30

Let’s understand some of the photo sizes in detail —

4×6 Photo Size

Technically, 4×6 prints measure approximately 4” x 5 ⅞”. This is actually the standard size in the photofinishing industry as this print size mirrors the aspect ratio of most digital cameras’ viewfinders.

Apart from that, 4×6 prints are ideal for framed photos, cards, and a physical backup of any of your favorite digital images.

5×7 Photo Size

5×7 photo prints are slightly larger than 4×6 and they have a higher aspect ratio than 4×6 prints. So, cropping images to your personal specifications is crucial!

8×10 Photo Size

An 8×10 image is the largest print size at hand before getting into large-scale printing such as posters, panoramas, square images, or custom gifts like canvases or large format prints. 8×10 images make a cool gift as they don’t require any additional matting to fill up a frame.

Square-sized Photo Print

Small photos are perfect for decoration as they add texture and depth to your photo wall display. Square photos provide the option to print photos for social media, and also as a hack to create Polaroid-style images without the need for a special camera.

These sizes are found in a print shop, as well as corresponding framed prints. Some of the popular square photo print sizes are the following sizes —

5×5
10×10
12×12
16×16
20×20
30×30

Large-sized Photo Print

Large photo prints are stunners for creating a “wow” factor with your wall decor or a gorgeous centerpiece for a gallery wall. With large print photo sizes like premium posters, you can transform high-definition photos into home decor without sacrificing quality.

Your favorite photos will look striking, and you’ll be able to relive your memories with top-notch prints. Some of the large-sized photo print sizes are listed below —

10×13
10×20
11×14
16×20
18×24
20×24
20×30

These sizes are ideal for designing posters as statement pieces for your wall art or large canvases to create a gorgeous home with your most cherished images. Let’s take a look at the most large-scale photo prints below —

12×18
14×22
16×20
20×30.

Panoramic Print Sizes

To print non-traditional images, panoramic prints bring out the best results. They come in both landscape and portrait orientations. The panoramic print will allow you to entirely get immersed in your photo, whether it’s a landscape picture or a large family photo.

With wider panoramic prints, you won’t have to compromise on the quality to successfully print more wide-angle pictures. You can cherry-pick from a variety of backgrounds and layouts to print your most unique image sizes like —

5×15
8×24
12×36

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Pick an Aspect Ratio to Fit Common Picture Sizes

When picking a standard frame for your artwork or photo, it's pivotal to consider its orientation and ensure that the frame aligns with the horizontal or vertical layout of your image.

Feel free to be innovative when selecting photo print sizes! For example, there are a number of ways to create a photo wall. You can make a grid with images at standard picture frame sizes. Alternatively, you can merge small, medium, and large photos for a creative collage of your best memories. Some people suspend just a single poster of a large standard photo size with their desired photograph.

When it comes to picture frame sizes, choices are in the dozens! Feel free to go beyond a single standard print size. You have a massive space to reveal your creativity. No good or bad standard picture sizes – only those that work and don’t work for you.

Resolution You Need for Standard Photo Print Sizes

When pro photographers deal with resolution, they refer to how many pixels are shown per inch of an image. It’s basically measured in pixels per inch or PPI. The unit of measurement for digital cameras is megapixels, which is mainly the amount of detail a camera can capture with its image sensor.

Photos with a higher resolution contain more pixels to form top-quality images while images with a low resolution have fewer pixels. For instance, when you enlarge a low-res photo, the pixels show up blurring the image.

When you use editing software to alter the resolution, you’re instructing the program how many pixels should go into each inch of your image. So, it’s key to ensure your photo has a high resolution when you open it for editing. The best is to start with a quality image and cut down the size or PPI from there.

What is the Aspect Ratio for Print Sizes?

Rather than using units of measurement like inches or centimeters, the aspect ratio is reflected by the relationship of the width to the height in comparison to each other. It’s usually displayed in an x:y format determining the shape rather than the image’s actual size.

The aspect ratio changes depending on the medium your image is displayed. This is salient for web content where different ratios are needed for using in desktop, mobile, landing page, or social media. As long as you use the correct ratio for each of these, you will get peachy images for your web design.

What is 1:1 Aspect Ratio?

Either side of your image is the same size, which makes this a fine square. Leverage this for social media profile photos.

What is 3:2 Aspect Ratio?

This is mainly the aspect ratio of the original 35 mm film and is widely used in digital photography as well as film businesses.

What is 4:3 Aspect Ratio?

Your computer monitor, TV, and digital camera deploy this aspect ratio. To fill those screens, make sure to take photos in 4:3.

What is 16:9 Aspect Ratio?

Most computer monitors and widescreen televisions tap into the 16:9 aspect ratio. It has a bit longer width than 4:3.

What is 18:6 Aspect Ratio?

18:6 aspect ratio is a popular one for long panoramic shots of landscapes that take the viewer’s attention away. Tap into this ratio to spice up your interior design with your favorite holiday landscape photo.

How to Select the Right Photo Sizes for Print

Before thinking about printing photos, consider where you’re going to showcase them. In the case of gifting your friends, take into account where they’re going to put your prints. Are they going to be large poster-like prints on the wall or framed for your mantelpiece? They can even be landscape or portrait layouts.

However, if you’re planning on fusing different sizes, cut out templates from colored paper and stick them to the wall to get a picture of how you would lay out them. Don’t forget to consider the viewing distance of your printed image.

For instance, a large poster on the wall can be pixelated a bit when you walk up close to it. Since everyone looks at posters from some distance, they won’t view the pixelation. On the contrary, you have to make sure your photo is resized correctly for a family portrait and has the right resolution to be viewed up close.

To get your photos printed, start by getting the resolution and format right. Your printer and too few pixels compensate for missing pixels by making part of them up to fill your photo page. If your PPI is excessively high, your printer shrinks the image and distorts it.

Don’t enlarge your photo beyond its original size, lest you might lose out on resolution and quality. When resizing your image, always ensure you’re saving your file as a png instead of a jpg to maintain pixel integrity.

Ideal Photo Sizes for the Web

Knowing the image's size is integral for ensuring that it will fit on the web without expanding. The use of wrong image size may result in not landing the best presentation on the web.

1920 x 1080 px: This photo size has an aspect ratio of 16:9 and is widely leveraged in photography, television, social media covers, etc.

1280 x 720 px: This size is also in a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is a common HD format deployed in photography and film.

1080 x 1080px: This is a known size, which is the standard 1x1 image size, and is widely utilized on social media platforms, such as Instagram.

Full Width Image Size：This is a special image size in addition to the above image sizes. On your website, you may require some photos to be displayed on full screens, such as the main website image or a banner image.

To make sure the full-width image looks polished on all sizes of devices, the recommended size for it is 16:9 aspect ratio, 1500px (min recommended) to 2560px (max recommended). We would recommend taking a bigger photo than usual to deter crucial photo content cropped out by browsers.

Blog Post Image Size： Another special photo size is the blog post image size. Undoubtedly, intriguing photos draw viewers' attention in the digital era of social media. You should add photos to your blog to jazz them up. We would recommend using photos of the same width to add to your posts so they will look neater and more consistent.

For example, if your blog content area is 800px wide, choose images less than 800px width to add to your blog, while photos more than 800px will be automatically resized by the system, and are likely to lose image quality.

Ideal Photo Sizes for Printing

Even though digital images are widely used in this era, we can't negate that there is still a large market for photo printing. You may decide to print family photos and frame them to keep as a memory or your passport photo for professional use.

Passport Printing: The ideal passport photo size is 2 x 2 inches.

Photo Printing: 4 x 6 or 5 x 7 is the standard and popular photo size, usually leveraged to display artistic photos or greeting card printing. This size is also commonly used in the printing industry.

Poster Printing: 8.5 x 11 inches is suitable for poster printing or for producing slightly larger photo mounts. To notch up the best results, we would recommend using the aspect ratio of 4:3 and resizing the photo to 3400 x 4400 px.

Ideal Photo Sizes for Social Media

Facebook posts & stories: The most common size for Facebook posts is 1200x630 px. This is a perfect size for Facebook posts and Facebook doesn't need to crop or stretch the image to fit in. For Facebook stories, we would recommend capturing vertically and keeping the ratio at 9:16 with the recommended pixels of 1080x1920.

Facebook cover photos: For Facebook cover photos, 820 x 312 px is the optimal size which will bring out the best results for you.

Twitter posts: For Twitter posts, different photo sizes are used for different cases. If you want to post a single photo, choose a photo of 1200 x 675 px. However, If you aim to post two photos, 700 x 800 px is the best size.

Twitter cover photos: A horizontal image of 500 x 1500 px is most appropriate for Twitter cover photos.

Instagram: The Instagram image shows up square, so a 1x1 image size is perfect for creating a standard Instagram image. The most common size is 1080x1080 px.

If your photos contain more pixels than this value, we recommend resizing your photos for Instagram. Otherwise, the image quality may deteriorate.

Winding Up

All of us capture photos for different purposes. But it’s inevitable to know the standard photo sizes for these purposes. Or else, our photos may look stunning but when we leverage them in our intended purpose, it won’t produce the best results.

When we talk about photo sizes, the point of photo resizing also comes into play. So, how to resize photos to fit into the given area? Of course, there are plenty of options available to you, including online resizing tools.

However, the best tool that can yield top-notch and satisfactory results is Adobe Photoshop. Besides resizing your photos, it also ensures your photos retain their original quality!