What exactly does the term max resolution mean?
I've heard people request to have images uploaded to their sites at the max resolution. Does really just refer to how big the image is. I shoot with a nikon D90 and export from lightroom at highest quality, largest size, and image resolution at 240. The jpeg files on average are from 5 to 9 megabytes. How large can a photo with these specs be printed and still look great? Do the settings need to be adjusted according to use e.g. Print and web?
I always choose best answer.
Maximum is maximum
If you shoot your camera in RAW, you will be using its maximum resolution.
When you process the files in Lightroom, by default the PPI will be 240, but you can change that to 300 if you wish.
If your goal is to make poster size prints (2x3 feet or larger, export those image files as TIFF files. That way there's NO loss in data because TIFF files are uncompressed, while JPEG is a compression process and much information is lost.
Just try this.
Pick one RAW file and process it. Export it first as a JPEG and then as a TIFF. You will see a huge difference in the file size due to the compression that JPEG induces.
The file size and the print size are really unrelated. Resolution refers to pixel dimensions. The maximum resolution on your d90 is 4, 288 x 2, 848. Depending on how much compression you use in your photos, you can have higher and lower image file sizes, but this is the max resolution. If you want to print at 300 ppi which is pretty standard for a high quality print, your maximum print size is about 12x9 at 240ppi, it is 17x11, at 200 ppi (which is as low as I would go for a high resolution photo print), you can get 21x14. Of course, the larger the print, the more likely you are to see other flaws such as poor focus or distortion or other lens issues.
When I print, I work in the maximum resolution of the image until I get the final look I want. Then I figure the size of the print and scale the image down to that size at 300 ppi. So if I'm printing an 8x10 photo, the highest resolution I need is 3000x2400.
Beyond that, file format will introduce more compression artifacts. I always work with uncompressed TIFF files or PSD files as my editing masters, saving the RAW files as a digital "negative." These files can be huge. Once I'm done, I will save it to a very high quality JPEG to save transmission time. If I'm printing them myself (which I do up to 8x10), I print from the TIFF or PSD file.
Normally means the pixel resolution, in your case it would be 240. The photo can be any size as long as it has 240 pixels if that s what your camera shoots at.