Best settings to export for tablet viewing

[Evanford]

Hello all,

I bought my wife a Nook Tablet for X-mas.  One of the first things she asked me about it is how to display our family photos (Canon 7D) on the thing.  Although web viewing our SmugMiug gallery is not bad, I wanted to port some photos directly to the device. Its screen resolution is 1024X600, 169 pixels per inch.  Should I size my jpgs to meet those specs?  Or should I export full size jpgs and lower the quality to make the files smaller?   

Thanks in advance for answering such a basic question.   

Evan

[Peter McLennan]

I would re-size the images before sending them to the tablet.  Whatever software you use would probably do a better (and more controllable) job of re-sizing than the tablet would.

I'd also experiment with varying JPG compression levels to see how much compression you can apply before it becomes visible on the tablet.  This will be image-dependent.  Some images compress more than others.  Some images show the results of such compression more than others.  In general, low contrast, smooth toned images compress invisibly more than high contrast, high detail images.

[NikoJorj]

For Lightroom, the effect of jpeg compression setting has been explored here : http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/jpeg-quality - bottom line set it to 75 for quality.

For size, yes, tell LR to resize either to Width & Height / 1024 / 600 or long edge / 1024, depending if you will rotate portarit images on the tablet or not.

[sparty]

I'd suggest 2048 long edge (double the tablet rez) to retain IQ while zooming.

[mac_paolo]

In the C2PS tutorial Jeff and Michael preented thei preset, which was based on a 2000px longest size.
I partially disagree. Max size is 2048 px: the double of actual iPad( 2) display. I really can't find any reason to cap it to 2000, can you?

[RFPhotography]

I'd suggest 2048 long edge (double the tablet rez) to retain IQ while zooming.

If the purpose is to display family photos, I don't know that there'll be a lot of zooming going on.

I recently exported a bunch of images to my phone as a 'pocket portfolio' and sized them to 1920 on the long side, letting the short side be whatever it is based on the crop dimensions.  Works really well.  Images are very crisp and clean on screen.

[mac_paolo]

If the purpose is to display family photos, I don't know that there'll be a lot of zooming going on.

I recently exported a bunch of images to my phone as a 'pocket portfolio' and sized them to 1920 on the long side, letting the short side be whatever it is based on the crop dimensions.  Works really well.  Images are very crisp and clean on screen.

Apart from the fact that "crisp and clean" really do mean nothing...  every choice is a choice. You can put 2000 or 2048 in final export dimension: same effort.
So the question would be: is there any reason to export for 2000 pixels when the standard longest size is 1.953 times smaller? I would say NO.
Is there any reason to export for 2048 pixels when the standard longest size is 2 times smaller? I'de say definitely YES: scaling is much better and easier.

I think there must be a reason why Apple limit photo dimensions as 2048x2048 and not 2000x2000, don't you agree? 

[RikkFlohr]

This link has good information on sizing for the iPad:
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/ipad-howto
Pay attention to item 6

[mac_paolo]

This link has good information on sizing for the iPad:
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/ipad-howto
Pay attention to item 6

I already use that specific plugin for my iPad export.
All my iPad portfolio images are cropped in 4:3 and then resized to 2048x1536.
I use custom keywords to tell the plugin how to crop.