Digital photos can be viewed in many different ways, but more than likely you will be viewing them on computer screens or on printed paper. Most prints will be on standard paper sizes such as 4X6 or 5X7. But every now and again, you may have that special photo that you want to make an enlargement of. The quality of print enlargements depends on you digital camera mega pixels figure.
Every digital photo that you take with your camera has a certain resolution normally expressed as the number of pixels in the photo or sometimes as two numbers depicting the number of pixels over the X axis and the number of the Y axis (multiplying these two numbers provides the total number of pixels in the digital photo).
You are actually printing these digital pixels on paper when you print your digital photos. If the paper size is big and the resolution is large, the digital print quality will be poor. The end result can be the ability to actually see the individual pixels on the print. This is known as pixelization.
That leads us to the question of how do you determine the largest print possible from a particular digital photo? There really is no one exact answer. Not only do the number of pixels help determine photo quality, other factors such as how much detail is in the photo or what the lighting were also play a role. Even the number of pixels can be argued as different people have different views on what is acceptable print quality.
A rough estimation of what comprises a good print quality is based on the pixels density or in other words the number of pixels per inch on the printed photo. This is also known as PPI (pixels per inch) and it represents the number of pixels over an axis line.
Experiments show that the following qualities are usually associated with a specific PPI number:
PPI 100 - fair to bad
PPI 200 - good
PPI 300 and up - very good
The next reasonable step would be to determine how many mega pixels are needed for good quality printing on a specific paper size. Calculating this number is very easy. All you need to do is to simply multiply the page length by its width in inches, resulting in the number of square inches on the page. Now multiply this number by the square of the PPI number and the result is the number of pixels on the page which is the number of pixels we want our source photo to have. Here are the numbers calculated for some common sizes (for 100,200 and 300 PPI respectively):
page 4X6 0.24MP 1MP 2MP
5X7 0.35MP 1.5MP 3MP
8X10 0.8MP 3MP 7MP
page 11X14 1.5MP 6MP 14MP
16X20 3MP 12MP 28MP
page 20X30 6MP 24MP 54MP
This table is just an estimation of what is considered suitable number of mega pixels for different paper sizes. There are many other factors to consider when making enlargements. Experimenting with different paper sizes is the best way to go but it can be expensive. In addition sometimes what is considered poor quality pixelization can actually be a nice artistic effect which strengthen the unfortunate fact that in addition to the above calculation some common sense and experience are needed in order to match a specific digital photo to a specific paper size enlargement.
Every digital photo that you take with your camera has a certain resolution normally expressed as the number of pixels in the photo or sometimes as two numbers depicting the number of pixels over the X axis and the number of the Y axis (multiplying these two numbers provides the total number of pixels in the digital photo).
You are actually printing these digital pixels on paper when you print your digital photos. If the paper size is big and the resolution is large, the digital print quality will be poor. The end result can be the ability to actually see the individual pixels on the print. This is known as pixelization.
That leads us to the question of how do you determine the largest print possible from a particular digital photo? There really is no one exact answer. Not only do the number of pixels help determine photo quality, other factors such as how much detail is in the photo or what the lighting were also play a role. Even the number of pixels can be argued as different people have different views on what is acceptable print quality.
A rough estimation of what comprises a good print quality is based on the pixels density or in other words the number of pixels per inch on the printed photo. This is also known as PPI (pixels per inch) and it represents the number of pixels over an axis line.
Experiments show that the following qualities are usually associated with a specific PPI number:
PPI 100 - fair to bad
PPI 200 - good
PPI 300 and up - very good
The next reasonable step would be to determine how many mega pixels are needed for good quality printing on a specific paper size. Calculating this number is very easy. All you need to do is to simply multiply the page length by its width in inches, resulting in the number of square inches on the page. Now multiply this number by the square of the PPI number and the result is the number of pixels on the page which is the number of pixels we want our source photo to have. Here are the numbers calculated for some common sizes (for 100,200 and 300 PPI respectively):
page 4X6 0.24MP 1MP 2MP
5X7 0.35MP 1.5MP 3MP
8X10 0.8MP 3MP 7MP
page 11X14 1.5MP 6MP 14MP
16X20 3MP 12MP 28MP
page 20X30 6MP 24MP 54MP
This table is just an estimation of what is considered suitable number of mega pixels for different paper sizes. There are many other factors to consider when making enlargements. Experimenting with different paper sizes is the best way to go but it can be expensive. In addition sometimes what is considered poor quality pixelization can actually be a nice artistic effect which strengthen the unfortunate fact that in addition to the above calculation some common sense and experience are needed in order to match a specific digital photo to a specific paper size enlargement.
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