Photo Print Sizes: cm, Inches and Pixels

What size is a 10x15 photo, in cm and pixels?

A 10×15 photo print is exactly 10.16×15.24 cm (101.6×152.4 mm); rounded, it is written as 10.2×15.2 cm and simply called “10×15”. The size comes from 4×6 inches: photo papers are made internationally in inches, and their names are rounded to centimetres depending on the country. That is why the paper you measure with a ruler comes out a few millimetres larger than 10×15.

Pixel needs follow from resolution: inches × DPI. At 300 DPI a 10×15 needs 4 × 300 = 1200 by 6 × 300 = 1800, i.e. 1200×1800 pixels. This is the value used for full sharpness in photo printing; your print file is also prepared at this resolution once payment is confirmed. At 200 DPI (800×1200 pixels) a print still looks clean to most eyes; below 150 DPI (600×900) detail softens.

The ratio of 10×15 is 2:3 (1.5). Phone main cameras mostly shoot 3:4 (1.33), while vertical videos and screenshots are 9:16; the difference shows on paper either as cropping or as a white band. Filling a 10×15 from a 3:4 phone photo crops 11.1% of the short side; other sizes and ratios are in the tables below.

In some countries the same sizes go by “R” names: 9×13 = 3R, 10×15 = 4R, 13×18 = 5R. A template labelled 4R or 4×6 online is the same as our 10×15; a template that says 10×15 cm but is drawn at 100×150 mm is a few millimetres smaller than the paper and can leave a gap at the edge of a borderless print. If you print on your own printer, paper and driver settings are in the how to print 10x15 photos guide.

What are the standard photo print sizes? Chart in cm, inches and pixels

The exact sizes in the chart are the inch values converted to centimetres (1 inch = 2.54 cm). The 300 DPI column gives the pixels needed for full sharpness, the 200 DPI column the acceptable minimum. 10×15 and 20×30 share the same 2:3 ratio: a crop you prepare for 10×15 works unchanged at 20×30, it just needs twice the pixels.

13×18 (5:7) and 9×13 (7:10) are squarer than 2:3, so they crop less from a 3:4 phone photo but more from a 2:3 camera photo. Today we print 10×15 only: the online photo printing guide explains how an order works from start to finish, and the ordering steps are on the 10x15 photo prints page.

Borderless or white-bordered printing does not change the paper size; only the area the image takes on the paper changes. In a borderless print the image covers the whole sheet and an outer strip of about 2 mm can be trimmed; in a white-bordered print the whole photo is visible and the empty area stays white.

Typical use, roughly: 9×13 for small albums and wallets, 10×15 for standard albums, keepsake boxes and most desk frames, 13×18 for a single photo you want to stand out and for large desk frames, and 20×30 for wall frames. When buying a frame, checking that its inner size matches the paper’s inch size avoids a gap at the edge.

How much of a phone photo is cropped at each size?

The chart shows what is lost when the photo is cropped from the centre to cover the whole paper (the “Fill” option); the values come from comparing the photo’s ratio with the paper’s and match our order screen’s default crop. On a 3:4 photo the loss is at the sides, on a 9:16 photo at the top and bottom. A landscape photo sits on the paper in landscape, so a 4:3 landscape photo also loses 11.1% and a 16:9 landscape photo 15.6%.

If you do not want to lose anything, the “White border” option prints the whole photo and leaves the empty area white: on 10×15 the band is 1.7 cm in total for a 3:4 photo, 1.6 cm for a 9:16 photo and 5.1 cm for a square (1:1) photo. You can set the option photo by photo or for all photos at once. If text or a face sits very close to the edge, moving the crop by hand in the editor that opens with “Edit” usually gives a better result than either option.

When printing on your own printer, you make the same choice in the driver’s borderless and scaling settings; the order of those settings is covered in the printing photos at home steps.

How many pixels do you need to print a photo? Effective DPI by source

Effective DPI is the number of pixels that land on each inch of paper after cropping; the values in the chart are calculated with the “Fill” crop at 10×15. The order screen does the same calculation for every photo and puts a warning on top of any photo below the threshold: “A bit soft” below 200 DPI, “May print blurry” below 150 DPI. Zooming into the crop lowers the value, and the warning updates on its own.

Copies saved from an app, received in a message or taken as a screenshot are usually downsized. If you can, upload the original from the phone that took the photo, or ask the sender to send it as a document or in original quality. Step-by-step selection from iPhone, Android and WhatsApp is in the printing photos from your phone guide.

DPI (dots per inch) and PPI (pixels per inch) are used interchangeably in everyday speech; what matters for printing is how densely the photo’s pixels are spread over each inch of paper. A “72 dpi” or “300 dpi” tag stored in the file says little on its own: the pixel count decides, and the tag only changes the default print size.

A photo with no warning has enough resolution for 10×15. Quantity tiers and shipping terms are in the live table on the 10x15 photo print prices page.

How do you resize a photo to 10x15? Cropping to 2:3

If you want to crop the photo to 10×15 yourself before printing, pick “2:3” or “4×6” as the ratio in your phone’s editor; it is 2:3 for a portrait photo and 3:2 for a landscape one. There is no need to change the pixels, i.e. to resample the photo to 1200×1800: a larger photo with the same ratio is drawn at the right scale in the print file.

With us you do not have to do this: in the Preview step every photo is shown cropped to 2:3 from the centre, exactly as it will sit on the paper, and in the editor that opens with “Edit” you can move and zoom the crop or rotate the photo. The outer ~2 mm strip of a borderless print can be trimmed; the dashed line in the editor shows this safe area. Cropping a document photo to size is a different job; its rules are in the cropping a photo to ID photo size guide.

To crop on a computer, choosing a 2:3 (or 4×6) aspect ratio in the crop tool of the Photos app on Windows or Preview on macOS is enough. When saving the cropped file, keep the quality close to maximum: JPEG is compressed a little more with every save. A HEIC file taken on an iPhone can be uploaded as it is, without converting; details are in the printing from an iPhone guide.