 BetterPhoto Member |
photo quality Hi! I bought my first digital camera before I went on a big trip to africa. had not used one before and asked the people in the shop if there was anything I should know and that I would be using this camera in dark places so would I need to change any of the settings. was told 'no. it will be fine'. well have since come back off the trip and tried to print some of the pictures off to find that they are pixilated, even in a 6x4 print. went back to the shop and was told that I prob had it on a low setting and that I wouldnt be able to do anything about it. I have a fuji s5700 and the setting he checked was on the lowest setting of '03m' which is for email photos only. is there anything anyone can suggest that I can do to alter the image so I can print off a crisp picture? I'd be very grateful for any advice
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John P. Sandstedt |
Since this your first digital camera, I'm surprised you're aware of what pixilated means. And, I'm not saying that to be critical. I think, however, you've simply tried to print without doing any editing. Assuming you correctly downloaded your camera to your computer, and further assuming you have one of the many versions of Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, open one of your pictures. Then go to Image>Image Size. A window should appear that gives you a variety of information about your image. Next to the words Pixel Dimensions, you'll see a number followed by a "M." This refers to the megabytes of data in your image. Looking downward, you'll see two sets of data on the dimensions of your image. The first is the number of pixels; the second set is the picture dimensions in [hopefully] inches. You can change this measure unit. Beneath that is the resolution of the image. With my images [from a Canon 30D] this number is 72 ppi. That's too small to get good prints. I change it to to 300 ppi and adjust the dimensions to, typically 8X12. I keep Resampling selected. If you print at 72 ppi, you'll get a pixelated picture. Most inkjet prints are anticipating receipt of a 300 ppi file, however. This could be your problem.
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Samuel Smith |
bite me slick. linguistics.verbal or in print. your take that we and ok i,well I at this point.no.
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hi Alex, John gave out some good information and I would add, that memory cards are pretty cheap these days so get 2GB or 4GB cards and shoot at best quality. Raw is preferable once you start working with Photoshop or other editing software. I know this will not help you for your Africa trip but hopefully Johns advice will work for you. I 1st started digital photography with a Fuji Finepix S602 and for a fixed lens DSLR, and only 3MP, it does take some very nice photos.
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Richard Lynch |
Alex, Hard lesson learned here. First, you generally want to get some experience with any new equipment before going off and using it on a shoot of any importance (i.e., anything you won't be returning to in walking distance of your home or studio). Testing out the equipment both to be sure it performs (isn't broken), performs as expected, and that you can get what you need is imperative. In this case it likely would have avoided the issue you had and you might have solved space issues using Carlton's suggestion for a larger card so you'd still have had opportunity to shoot a lot of images. The trade off in storing more images is that the images have less detail. Just like film, there is advantage to larger size (in this case of the resulting files rather than larger film formats). More detail captured at the time the shutter is released means more potential detail. Simply upsizing the photo will not add any detail -- it will interpolate and fill in some generated image info but it will not enhance sharpness of pull in things that are not in the original capture. You may not get pixelation, but you will get softness/blur when you increase the size. The dimension that really matters here is the pixels in the original, and not as much the ppi -- which is somewhat arbitrary. The number of pixels captured is a finite expression of the detail. If you are shooting 640x480 for example, the result will be fine for viewing on a monitor, but not so good for print. Trying to get something 'crisp' off of it at anything larger than about 3"x 2" is unlikely. You may be able to print some a little larger depending on your expectations. For almost any situation I suggest shooting with maximum resolution on any camera...unless there are settings on the camera that introduce a lot of interpolation. So, I'm sorry for this rough introduction to digital...but I hope you continue to experience and explore, though this may be quite disappointing. Once you get comfortable with digital, you'll find you have quite a lot of flexibility with the results...and you'll be ready for that next trip. Richard Lynch
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