I often need to make advanced plans around quantities, sizes and transmission of images for my clients and to aid this I use some simple maths to quantify things. To aid this further I have created a set of web calculators covering all the common tasks.
Here are some common calculations I need to make when planning in advance:
- How long will it take me to upload 2GB of images via ftp to a client? – or download 1TB?
- How many raw or tiff files can I store on a 3TB drive or a 9TB NAS?
- How many minutes (or hours) will it take to transfer 1620GB of raw files to a NAS from a client’s USB2 external drive?
- To make a high quality 20″x16″ print at the Epson ideal print density of 360dpi how many pixels do I need?
- What is the lowest megapixels a camera or file can be to still cover (for example) an A2 print at 350dpi? how about 7″x6″ at 150dpi?
All of these can be answered using the calculators below, here is a list of what they do:
Time and transmission:
Internet calculator – Calculate upload and download times for large files and collections of images.
Network calculator – Calculate transfer times for large collections of files across a local wired or wireless network
Capacity and file size:
How many images? – Calculate how many images/ files can fit on a hard disk, NAS or optical device
Camera file size and space calculator – Calculate files sizes and storage requirements of a particular camera
Card Full? – Calculate image capacities for your camera writing to different sized SD or CF cards
Dimensions for print and repro:
Print size calculator 1 – Calculate file size requirements when someone asks for a physical size for print or repro, this calculator allows you to specify units of meters, feet, inches, cm, mm.
Print size calculator 2 – Calculate native print and repro sizes from your images pixel dimensions.
Misc:
Getting View: Print Size to work properly in Photoshop – Calculate the right dpi for your monitor using this easy and practical method
I hope you will book mark these individual calculators to help plan your workflow. If you have any ideas for other calculators let me know and I will see what I can do.
