Photographers: What's a good scale I should save my photos for upload online?

When I worked for a paper, the standard dpi for print media was 300dpi, and for internet it is 72dpi. The photo can be any size, usually sized to fit the online frame, but is set at 72dpi. 72 is low enough that photos don’t take up memory and take forever to download, but high enough that they don’t appear pixelly online. If you try to print 72dpi pictures, they will appear pixelly.

I haven’t worked in publications for 6 years, so others might have more current information than I do.

I generally stick to 800×600 for online pics, and 72dps as @linguaphile suggests. It keeps the file sizes small and at 800×600 they will display on most people’s screens without scrolling.

I’ll agree with less than 1000 pixels in the larger dimension, because the image will display well on most screens without scrolling.
It confuses me that dpi is mentioned since as far as I can tell that is ignored in the online context. I.e. whether you put the pic at 72 dpi or 300 dpi it will show up at the same size on the screen won’t it ?

@dabbler you’re correct; dpi really only matters for printing.

@dabbler that is the whole point—to make the photos not useful for print but just for online sharing, free screensavers, the like. Increasing the dpi [which also increases the file size unless the corresponding print size is decreased so there are still only 800 pixels in the on-screen width] would likely increase the overall image size—
key word is RESOLUTION —controlled by pixels