Preserve Your Pixels
Don’t Let Convenience Waste Your Camera’s Potential
As we prepare for our exhibition, I’ve noticed something important. Many of us are carrying phones or cameras with excellent sensors that can produce sharp, detailed images — perfect for prints. Yet by the time those photos reach our club albums, some are still large 12–20 MB files, while others have shrunk to just 3 MB. Why the difference? It’s not the cameras — it’s how photos are stored and shared.
Where the pixels go
Google Photos “Storage saver” setting reduces file size and throws away the originals.
iCloud “Optimise iPhone Storage” keeps full originals in iCloud, but your phone only has smaller versions. If you share incorrectly, you might only send the smaller copy.
WhatsApp, Messenger, email (small/medium/large) also shrink photos automatically.
Shared albums (Google Photos, iCloud, Facebook) may apply hidden compression.
Why this matters
An A4 print at 300 dpi needs about 3500 × 2500 pixels. A compressed 3 MB file might only give you 2000 pixels on the long side — fine for a phone screen, but soft and disappointing on paper.
How to safeguard your images
Set Google Photos to “Original quality.” In the app: Settings → Backup → Upload size → Original.
For iPhone users: in Settings → Photos, choose Download and Keep Originals.
Avoid lossy transfers. Don’t rely on WhatsApp or small/medium email options.
Use Google Photos albums for both sharing and exhibition transfers. As long as your settings are correct, we will receive the full-size images we need.
Make an extra backup. Don’t rely on just one cloud service. Keep a copy on a hard drive or USB stick.
Closing thought
We pay good money for high-quality cameras, but unless we preserve those pixels, that investment is wasted. A few small changes to settings and habits will ensure our images are exhibition-ready, not just screen-ready.