Minimum resolution for Quality 10x15

[jhnel]

I have a 5 mega pixel camera and only print 10 x 15 cm. I don’t do a lot of cropping either.
If I need to save memory card space and want to shoot at a lower resolution, how low could I go before the print quality will deteriorate? I also have a choice between ‘Fine’ and ‘Standard’ Quality. Should I stick to ‘Fine’ which also takes up more space, but the quality is higher.
My choices are 2560x1920; 2304x1728; 2048x1536; 1600x1200; 1280x960; 640x480
Quality ‘Fine’ or ‘Standard’

[Andy]

how low could I go

:wave welcome to Dgrin jhnel! Counterintuitively, smaller prints need more resolution than larger prints. Odd, isn't it? Why? We typically look at smaller prints much closer than larger prints. My advice is to invest in a larger memory card, and shoot at Fine/5Mpx on your camera. Your prints will be the better for it :thumb Here's some light reading on the subject:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality

[Bob Bell]

I have a 5 mega pixel camera and only print 10 x 15 cm. I don’t do a lot of cropping either.
If I need to save memory card space and want to shoot at a lower resolution, how low could I go before the print quality will deteriorate? I also have a choice between ‘Fine’ and ‘Standard’ Quality. Should I stick to ‘Fine’ which also takes up more space, but the quality is higher.
My choices are 2560x1920; 2304x1728; 2048x1536; 1600x1200; 1280x960; 640x480
Quality ‘Fine’ or ‘Standard’


Welcome and good choice in selecting black as your text.

The 1st rule in digital photography after all those other rules, is always shoot at the highest JPG resolution or use RAW. That gives you the most data to work with when cropping and editing. I work with a lot of printers and they always ask for 300DPI CMYK. So when I print for myself I always try to print at 300 DPI or the highest I can get away with. If your camera uses Compact Flash, you can buy a 2 Gig Sandisk Ultra II for under $100.

So to answer your question shoot 2560x1920 Quality ‘Fine’ and buy more flash media

[Malte]

I agree, use the best possible setting the camera offers. I just know I would kick myself some day if I had chosen lower quality instead of bigger storage.

Malte

[Matthew Saville]

:wave welcome to Dgrin jhnel! Counterintuitively, smaller prints need more resolution than larger prints. Odd, isn't it? Why? We typically look at smaller prints much closer than larger prints. My advice is to invest in a larger memory card, and shoot at Fine/5Mpx on your camera. Your prints will be the better for it :thumb Here's some light reading on the subject:

http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality
Andy is correct, you do usually look at smaller prints closer up compared to huge prints which you hang on the wall and look at from a distance. That's why I always do 4x6" prints at 300 ppi while I feel okay with dropping down to 180 or 150 ppi to do a 16x24" or 20x30" print..

Of course, obviously that does NOT mean I am going to try and print 20x30" with fewer than 5 megapixels. In fact, you need a lot more than 5 megapixels to do a 20x30" at 150 ppi. But the rule of thumb is certainly useful; always try to print small prints at 300 ppi with as much detail as you can muster. For a 10x15" print, you're probably best off to interpolate your 5 megapixels to a 10x15" at 200 or 300 ppi, and then applying some USM to the final image.

Good luck!
-Matt-

[mr peas]

At our studio,we use a 5MP Olympus E1. Its easy to blow up to an 8x10 and a 10x13 @ 5MP, the more power your camera can muster, the better! We've done prints up to 20x24 with 5MP and you can notice major image deterioration (similar to printing something thats optimized for the web and attempting to 'blow it up'). @ 16x20, its not so bad though. Hopefully that helps.

[Bob&Glennie]

Yup, I gotta agree with everybody. Shoot the best and biggest files your camera can do and buy more memory. I'ts cheep and you won't be sorry. Print small prints at least 200 dpi and don't be afraid to "rez up" if you have to. Photo Shop and Paint Shop Pro both resample (bicubic) very respectably. Do your resize resampleing before you sharpen. Now everybody's going to laugh me off the forum for this but I have made some acceptable 11x14's from my wife's 2.1 MP Olympus C2040 compact zoom. When viewed at the distance appropriate for this size of print they're not bad! So do your "rez up" very carefully but don't be afraid to try it.:wink :wink :wink

Bob

[Bob Bell]

Yup, I gotta agree with everybody. Shoot the best and biggest files your camera can do and buy more memory. I'ts cheep and you won't be sorry. Print small prints at least 200 dpi and don't be afraid to "rez up" if you have to. Photo Shop and Paint Shop Pro both resample (bicubic) very respectably. Do your resize resampleing before you sharpen. Now everybody's going to laugh me off the forum for this but I have made some acceptable 11x14's from my wife's 2.1 MP Olympus C2040 compact zoom. When viewed at the distance appropriate for this size of print they're not bad! So do your "rez up" very carefully but don't be afraid to try it.:wink :wink :wink

Bob

Infarnview is a free tool that I used to use with an A40 to upside to 8x10 shots. I think it was 2 mp as well. Infarnview is still around and is very useful with its lancsoz (sp?) resampling.

[Bob&Glennie]

Infarnview is a free tool that I used to use with an A40 to upside to 8x10 shots. I think it was 2 mp as well. Infarnview is still around and is very useful with its lancsoz (sp?) resampling.
Hey Bob, this is Bob calling:D :D :rofl Where can I get this "Infarnview" ? I'd like to try it. Is it a download? If so, from where?

Thanks
Bob

[Bob Bell]

Hey Bob, this is Bob calling:D :D :rofl Where can I get this "Infarnview" ? I'd like to try it. Is it a download? If so, from where?

Thanks
Bob

Wow might help if I can spell. Sorry about that: http://www.irfanview.com/

[Bob&Glennie]

Wow might help if I can spell. Sorry about that: http://www.irfanview.com/
Thanx