The new iPad (3) Retina display is beautiful. Text looks so crisp it's a joy to read on it and photographs just look stunning. The previous iPad models were great for photographers and other artists to showcase their work, but the new iPad is just amazing.
The Retina display on the new iPad has a 2048-by-1536 resolution. That's equivalent to a 3.1 megapixel image. Think about that for a second. That is enough megapixels to print a photo quality 7" x 5" (17cm x 13cm) print and get a fairly decent one at 13" x 10" (35cm x 26cm). No wonder photos look beautiful on the new iPad with all those pixels compacted into a tiny 9.7 screen.
And if you want the photographs in your website to look their best at full screen on the new iPad, you'll need to put them up there at full Retina resolution.
Which means you're now publishing fairly hi-res photos on the web.
This is something most photographers have avoided for fear of unscrupulous people stealing their work and using it without their consent. It's a fair concern. It happens. It's annoying at best and financially damaging at worst.
It begs the question, will the new iPad increase photo piracy?
Personally, I'm not yet sure how I stand on this. I've considered uploading higher resolution photos to my photography gallery, but I have to admit I am concerned with piracy. And I definitely don't want to put ugly watermarks on my photos.
Downloading photographs off the web is so easy that this could be a real problem. With the resolution needed for the new iPad, we'll be publishing images that are not only big enough to use online, but big enough to print.
I'm curious how others feel about this. Send me a message via the contact form, Twitter, or publish your thoughts on your blog and let me know.