Is your photo good enough to print large?
Usually yes, as long as you have the original file. A normal photo from a phone of the last few years is usually 12 megapixels: enough for a sharp A2 poster and a good print up to about 85 x 64 cm. A copy from WhatsApp or a screenshot often has less than a fifth of those pixels, which is already too small for A4. So find the original first, then look at sharpness and size.
By Edwin van Boven · updated 12 November 2026
How many pixels does a print size need?
Printers work in ppi: pixels per inch, and an inch is 2.54 cm. How many you need depends on how close you look. Our print size checker uses these rules:
- Smaller than A3 is seen up close: 240 ppi is sharp, 200 ppi is good.
- A3 and larger is seen from further away: 150 ppi is sharp, 120 ppi is good.
An example: a photo 4032 pixels wide, divided by 150, is 26.9 inches. That’s 68 cm, which is how wide it prints sharply.
What does a phone photo give you?
For a photo in a phone’s usual 4:3 shape, it works out like this:
| Photo | Pixels | Sharp up to (cm) | Good up to (cm) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copy from WhatsApp | about 1600 x 1200 | 17 x 13 | 20 x 15 |
| 8 megapixels | 3264 x 2448 | 55 x 41 | 69 x 52 |
| 12 megapixels | 4032 x 3024 | 68 x 51 | 85 x 64 |
| 24 megapixels | 5712 x 4284 | 97 x 73 | 121 x 91 |
| 48 megapixels | 8064 x 6048 | 137 x 102 | 171 x 128 |
A-sizes are a little longer than 4:3, so on an A2 poster about 6% comes off the short side of your photo. On a square canvas, a quarter of the long side goes.
Why your 48-megapixel camera saves 12 megapixels
Many phones advertise a 48, 50 or even 200-megapixel camera but save photos at 12 megapixels by default: they merge several pixels into one, which gives a cleaner photo in low light. Some newer iPhones save 24 megapixels by default. A full-resolution mode is usually in the camera settings; it makes bigger files, and in low light it often adds no real sharpness.
To see how many pixels your photo has, open it in your phone’s gallery and look at the photo’s details: swipe up or tap the i.
Why a photo from WhatsApp is smaller
WhatsApp shrinks photos so they send quickly. By default, about 1600 pixels on the long side usually remain, and the file is compressed harder. The HD option keeps more, but even then you don’t always get the original. Send a photo as a document and it arrives unchanged.
Instagram and Facebook shrink photos too. If someone else took the photo, ask them for the original, for example as a document or through a shared album. Some email apps ask whether you want to send a smaller version; choose the actual size.
A screenshot is not a photo
A screenshot has at most as many pixels as your screen, around 1080 to 1290 pixels wide on most phones. If you had zoomed in, even less of the actual photo is in it. On top of that, it gets compressed again. For a print it is always a step back.
Every crop costs pixels
Crop a photo to half its width and half its height and you keep a quarter of the pixels. A 12-megapixel photo becomes 2016 x 1512 pixels: sharp up to about 21 x 16 cm, and no longer a poster.
The same goes for zooming while you take the picture. On most phones, zooming beyond the fixed lenses is simply cropping in advance. Take a few steps closer instead.
Sharpness and light matter just as much
Pixels tell you how big you can print, not whether the photo is sharp. Three things make a photo soft, however many pixels it has:
- Movement. A child on the move or a shaky hand leaves smudges.
- Wrong focus. The phone focused on the background instead of the face.
- Low light. Indoors or in the evening you get noise, and the phone smooths it away. Up close, skin starts to look like watercolour.
The test: zoom in on your screen until the photo is at full size and look at the eyes or the most important detail. If it’s soft there, paper won’t make it sharper. Taking a photo to print large? Wipe the lens, tap the subject to focus, and find daylight.
When upscaling helps, and when it doesn’t
Upscaling makes a photo bigger by adding pixels. Simply stretching it adds no detail. An AI upscaler looks at the image and fills in detail that fits. Doubling the width and height is common.
It helps with a photo that is sharp but too small: a crop, a photo from an older camera, or a copy whose original really is gone.
It doesn’t help with a photo that is blurred by movement, out of focus or full of noise. You just get a bigger soft photo. And with faces an upscaler has to be careful, or someone suddenly looks not quite like themselves.
How to know for sure
Choose your photo in the print size checker. For each size, from a card up to A0, you see whether it prints sharp, with and without upscaling. It all happens in your browser; your photo isn’t uploaded. If it’s an image you made with AI, also read why AI images look blurry in print.