Web-sized images are images that have been compressed to make them easier to be shared online.
Web-sized photos tend to have very small file sizes to increase performance and prevent sites from loading slowly. While these photos can look large and crisp on screen, the size of these photos can be too small for a high quality print result. They tend to print blurry, grainy, and/or pixelated. You should be able to see the pixilation in your photos when opening the original images on your device and zooming in 200%.
When placing these small web-sized photos into the image placeholders we are effectively stretching them to fit, usually causing the DPI to drop well below our minimums. Our minimum is 160 DPI, our recommended is 300 DPI in the final size (meaning after they are placed in the image placeholders). You can view your image DPIs in the Design Studio by using our Image Quality tool.
If your professional photos are being flagged as having a low resolution, we recommend reaching out to your photographer to check if they have higher resolution versions available. Photographers will often make the web-sized versions of your photos available for ease of downloading and hosting your images online.
Please note that web-sized images may not always be flagged by the Design Studio, so we recommend carefully checking your images before uploading them into the Design Studio to ensure that you have the full size high resolution versions (if available). If your photos were taken by a photographer and you are not sure if you have the web-sized versions or the high resolution versions, we recommend checking with your photographer directly.