 BetterPhoto Member |
How Many Pixels Will I Need? I have a Pentax Optio with 4 million megapixels. Would this give me a good result for a photo 8x10?
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doug Nelson |
Look at the pixel length of the best resolution this camera can do. See your manual for this. If it's 2400 pixels, or even a tad less, you're good to go. Most inkjet printers these days require 240 pixels per inch input to give true photo quality. When you want the very best image quality on this Optio, shoot in the TIF mode. A review I read in a computer mag said the Optio 4 megapixel model they reviewed could shoot in TIF. When you do that, you need to buy more storage cards of great capacity than the one that came with the camera. When you must have the very best image, this is the way to go.
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Michael Kaplan |
It takes just simple math to figure out if you can print a certain size with an X MP camera. You take the size of the original image you want to print and divide it by the DPI of the printer you want to print at. For the Optio 450, the largest size of the photo is 2288 x 1712. You divide each of the pixel amounts by the DPI you want to print at. In the above persons example it would be 240DPI. So, 2288/240=9.53" x 7.13" is the maximum for that size... or is it? 1st of all, you do not have to print at 240DPI. Your printer driver will automatically up-size the photo to what it needs thru interpolation. That means that if you have 180DPI to print and it needs 240, it will put in the added pixels itself. It does a pretty good job too. This is of course good only for small amounts. You can not take a 1MP camera and interpolate it to print an 8x10 and get good quality. The other thing is that you also don't have to print at 240DPI to get a good photo. I hear of people printing as low as 150DPI and getting good results. At 150 DPI you would be able to print a 15.25"x11.4" (11x14) and still have good quality. With your original photo, you can definitely print a 12x18 with great results. I personally had printed a 3MP image to a 12x18 and the shop I brought it in to to get it framed would swear it was from a 35mm and not digital. So the answer then is YES, you certainly can print a 8x10 and even a bit larger. You can try even 16x20 and may be happily surprised with the results.
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Wing Wong |
I think you are definitely good to go with your 4MP camera. :) I was producing acceptable prints with a 2.1MP camera at home at 8"x10". While the printer will interpolate for you, you will typically want to have the image close to the size/dpi you want to output at. If you create a large file for the printer to downsample, it might come out a bit blocky in places since the algorithm for downsampling may not be as well done as that used in Photoshop or any other imaging application. The same is even more true for upsampling. You'll get great results from your 4MP. Just do your editing and resizing in Photoshop before sending it off to the printer to let it resize.
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