The resolution of images taken with a digital camera is a major factor in deciding whether your pictures will be washed-out flops, or alive with sharp, vibrant life-like color.
Pay attention to resolution when buying and using a digital camera. Simply defined, resolution is the sharpness of an image. Resolution is measured in pixels per inch (ppi) or dots per inch (dpi). Otherwise, you'll regret it, just like several readers who recently cried out for help. They had amassed big collections of digital images of weddings, birthdays, conferences and other important events. Several took the pictures with cheap low-resolution cameras. Others had better cameras, but chose low-resolution settings in order to reduce file sizes and squeeze more images into the camera's memory.
Now they want to turn those digital files into 8" x 10" color prints, or crop out and enlarge parts of the images with photo editing software.
Those low-resolution images look terrific when viewed on a computer screen, e-mailed to friends and business associates and posted to Web sites. So why do enlargements yield blurred, faded images made up of a crazy-quilt of squares with jagged edges?

The messed-up images actually are termed "pixelated," after the key term in the explanation. It is "pixel," an acronym for "picture element."

Digital images are made from thousands or millions of "pixels," which are tiny dot-like units. The spacing or density of pixels in an image determines its resolution. An image made from more pixels will be sharper with more fine detail than one composed of fewer pixels.

Snap a picture with a 0.3 megapixel camera and you'll get an image composed of 640 pixels in the horizontal direction and 480 in the vertical. That's a "640 x 480" image consisting of 307,000 pixels.

Snap a picture with a 1.2 megapixel (1.2 million pixel) camera, and you'll get a denser 1,280 x 960 pixel image. Do the math. That's 1.23 million pixels.

Snap it with a 3 megapixel camera, and the image's high-resolution 2,048-pixel by 1,536-pixel composition will mean even greater depth and detail.

Pictures taken with low-resolution cameras, or saved in low resolution formats, look fine on a computer monitor because the monitor's resolution is relatively low.

But color enlargements involve spreading those pixels over a larger area. Cropping a face from group photo and blowing it up does the same. If you're working from a low-resolution digital file, there won't be enough pixels to go around, and you'll get a poor quality image.

One simple rule of thumb: If you want the best standard-sized color prints use a camera with at least 2.0 megapixel resolution. For high-quality 8" x 10" inch enlargements and cropping, go for at least 3.0 megapixels.

And use the high-resolution settings when snapping pictures. If the camera is short on internal memory, invest in an extra snap-in memory device, like Secure Digital Card, so you can store those big high-resolution files.

By MICHAEL WOODS
Toledo Blade
19-AUG-03