Halation

Halation · Print Guide

Printing your photographs

Every download from your gallery is the full-resolution original — yours to print anywhere, as large as the file allows. Here’s how to tell what a file can do.

To check a file: Get Info on a Mac, Properties on Windows, or the ⓘ button on your phone — you’ll see the size in MB and the pixel dimensions. Match either one to a row below.

File sizeResolutionlong edgeEverydayup to 8×10 · photo paperStatement11×14 – 16×24 · fine-art paperWall-scale20×30 + · canvas, metal, acrylic
Under 8 MB~3,000 pxBeautifulUp to 16×20 — choose canvasNot recommended
8–15 MB~5,500 pxBeautifulBeautifulUp to 24×36 — canvas or metal
15 MB +~9,000 pxBeautifulBeautifulAny size, any medium

Why medium matters. Canvas, metal, and acrylic are forgiving at big sizes — they’re viewed from across a room. Paper prints are seen up close and reward the most resolution, so save the largest paper sizes for the largest files.

About cropping. Most of these photographs are 3:2 — sizes like 4×6, 8×12, 12×18, 16×24, and 20×30 print the whole frame. 8×10 and 11×14 trim a little from the long edge; most labs let you choose what stays.

When in doubt, upload the file and let the lab’s preview judge it — good labs warn you before a print would disappoint. And if you’d ever like a hand choosing, just ask.

Seen in a room

What the sizes actually look like

The three categories, drawn to one shared scale — the sofa in every scene is the same seven feet. Same wall, very different objects.

Black-and-white barn scene of a man, a woman in a white dress and cowboy boots, and a girl in a striped dress dancing.
Everyday. An 8×10 on photo paper, matted and framed — about 13×15 on the wall. Any file in your gallery prints this beautifully, from any lab.
Black-and-white portrait of a tousle-haired young boy with a furrowed, intense expression against a blurred crowd.
Statement. A 16×24 on fine-art paper with a generous mat — about 24×32 framed. This is the size that wants an 8 MB+ file.
A large herd of horses runs down a dusty dirt road as mounted riders drive them through golden light.
Wall-scale. A 32×48 gallery-wrap canvas over a seven-foot sofa — no frame, the image wraps the edges. From a 15 MB+ file, and most of your gallery qualifies.

Three gallery walls

Ways to hang a set

Arrangements that work with any handful of favorites — same scale as above, with the exact sizes, mediums, and framing named.

A young girl in a striped dress and cowboy boots spins on a grassy field, her long hair whipping across her face.
Black-and-white barn dance where a smiling man in a vest and a blonde woman in white dance in a linked circle.
A laughing blonde woman in a shearling coat and cowboy boots sits on a curved wooden bench, gazing off-camera.
A gap-toothed boy in a bandana grins directly at the camera between a foreground girl and another boy, in soft light.
The grid. Four 8×12s on photo paper in matching thin frames with white mats — each about 13×17 framed, hung two inches apart. The quietest wall to build: any lab, any four files.
A gap-toothed boy in a bandana grins directly at the camera between a foreground girl and another boy, in soft light.
Black-and-white barn scene of a man, a woman in a white dress and cowboy boots, and a girl in a striped dress dancing.
A laughing blonde woman in a shearling coat and cowboy boots sits on a curved wooden bench, gazing off-camera.
The anchor. One 24×30 canvas carries the wall; an 8×10 and an 8×8 in thin frames keep it company. Mixing mediums is the point — canvas for presence, paper for the close look.
The triptych. One wide frame split across three 16×24 metal panels, hung two inches apart — a single 15 MB+ file becomes more than four feet of wall. Metal floats off the wall with no frame at all.
A herd of horses driven through a dusty green valley by a lone rider, with hazy forested hills rising behind.
A chestnut horse canters toward the camera kicking up dust as a herd moves down a dirt ranch road past a log cabin and split-rail fence.
A large herd of horses runs down a dusty dirt road as mounted riders drive them, with some horses leaping up a sagebrush bank past a 23 MPH sign.
The row. Three 12×18s hung in a line — the classic hang for landscape frames, and made for the herd drives: morning haze, the charge, golden light, one day across one wall. Every frame here is in the Horses gallery, free to download.
The panorama. A herd is a horizontal subject — one black-and-white drive split across three 20×30 gallery-wrap canvases makes more than five feet of wall from a single file. The biggest hang on this page, from any 15 MB+ frame.

Everything above is drawn to scale. If a wall here would suit your set, say so when you write — happy to mark out which of your files fit which spot.