# Export Settings for outputting for Kindle



## bigeater (Nov 21, 2012)

I'm putting together a cookbook with lots of photos and it would be ideal to be able to output all the photos at one time via LR4. Can anyone share the settings they've used successfully for their Kindle books? The information I've found so far is all over the map with regard to settings so I thought I would ask the experts. 
Thanks
RS


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 21, 2012)

Hi RS, welcome to the forum!

Kindle's a bit of a minefield, as each Kindle device displays things different.  Make sure you use JPEGs as it behaves oddly with GIF's or PNG's on the earlier devices.  Depending on how you run the conversion, there is supposedly a way to prevent it from recompressing the photos but it seems to do it anyway.  Sizewise, it's a tough one - there's a tradeoff between file size and image size.  A maximum of 1024x600 or smaller is a good bet, depending on the devices you're expecting people to use.


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## bigeater (Nov 21, 2012)

Thanks. This is great info. Two final questions; when I'm in the Export dialog box: 

1. What PPI resolution should I use? 72? 132? 133? 300? (according to my math, 72ppi is just over 28 pixels per centimeter)
2. How about sharpening? Assuming a reasonable amount of RAW sharpening does the standard setting of the "Sharpen For Screen" work well? Is it too much? Too little?

And as for where people will read the book, like all authors, I hope that the book is a huge seller and is used by people with all generations of Kindles, Nooks, iPads, Sonys, and Cybooks.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 21, 2012)

72 is as good as any - it makes no difference to anything if you've specified pixel dimensions for the output size.

Sharpening - I think I ended up running a Photoshop action to sharpen, but I was trying to sharpen screenshots with text.  Try screen high and see what you think of it.


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## SA_Tosterud (Nov 21, 2012)

I have one of the new Kindle Fire HDs and export out of LR at 72 dpi, 100% quality, sRGB and 20 inches on the long end.  I arrived at the 20 inches part after some experimentation.  For me this offers the best balance between quality and file size and allows the viewer the ability to zoom in a little bit.  I'm not sure if zooming would be terribly important in a cookbook, but it's something I considered for fine art images.

Oh, and I let LR Sharpen for Screen at the normal amount. 

Cheers,
~Steve


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## seaduck (Nov 22, 2012)

Sorry to jump in here with what might seem like a really dumb question.....But can you explain how you are using Kindle as a publishing platform?  Bigeater: are you publishing and selling through Amazon?  (I may have misunderstood your post to mean that you are privately distributing images/text for viewing on a Kindle.)


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