Rules of thumb for print size vs. resolution

Determine what your use for the image will be. Will you want an 8 × 10-inch print or will you only be emailing it to a friend? Choose the image size and amount of compression to meet these needs and capture at the least possible compression. The trade-off is large file sizes will fill up your media quicker, but later you can dump the original uncompressed image to a flash drive or hard drive, compress the original and resave it with a different file name. You cannot expand a previously compressed file so keep the uncompressed (or low compressed) file as a master.