How do I get more megapixels?

Question

I want to submit my photo where it has to be at least 4 megapixels. My photos turn out to be only 1,5 megapixels. I shot in camera RAW, my camera is 10 megapixels, didn't resize anything. What's happening here?

Answer 1

By any chance are you shooting with a Canon 40D?  The 40D has two types of RAW files.  RAW and sRAW.  If you are shooting sRAW, your resolution is 1,936×1,288, which is just about 2.5 megapixels.  If that is what you are doing, make sure you are shooting RAW and not sRAW.

But I'd tend to agree with everyone else.  You aren't getting file size (Megabytes) confused with resolution (Megapixels) are you?  If they have to be at least 4 megapixels, your resolution needs to be higher than 2,560×1,600.  A 10 megapixel camera should have a resolution of about 3,888×2,592.  Oftentimes there is a minimum size needed (such as 4 megapixels), but seldom is there a minimum file size specified.  Usually the opposite would be true, i.e. file size must be less than 4 megabytes.

So your photos need to be 4 Megapixels and no more?  You just need to resize them then.  4 Megapixels is an image that is 2,560×1,600 in the landscape orientation.  Your program whether it is something like Photoshop or something free like Irfanview should have some way to resize an image.

Answer 2

If you shoot 10mp camera in RAW - you get 10MP. Because RAW does not process the image, you do later on a computer. So unless you downsize them when convert from RAW to JPEG - you should still have all 10 there!

Are you by any chance confusing magapixels with megabytes?

If the file size is 1.5MB, that's just the file size. Open up the image and look at it's dimensions. If you multiply pixel width by length, that's going to give you the number of pixels. Divide that by a million - and you have your megapixel count.

LEM.

Answer 3

Lem is right you are confusing mp's with file size

READ YOU MANUAL

Answer 4

What is the make/model of your camera?

Your camera's menu should let you change the size of the photos to optimize storage capacity and easier emailing, etc.  Read your manual, Google the question along with the camera's make and model, check out the manufacturer's website, or play around with the camera's menu to learn how to change the size.