Image Quality?

Question

My digital camera has these setting of quality. I was wondering witch one wold be a normal size picture after i print it out.

SHQ 3072 x 2304

HQ 3072 x 2304

SQ1 2048 x 1536

SQ2 640 x 480

16:19 1920 x 1080

Answer 1

Always shoot at the highest resolution and least compression you can, you can always make it smaller, but if you havn't got the pixel count you can't make it bigger without dramatically reducing quality.

So for your camera that would be SHQ 3072 X 2304.

Cards and disc space is so cheap these days, the argument for smaller file size doesn't apply anymore. Large pictures are easy to convert for web or e-mailling in any Image Manipulation software.

Chris

Chris

Answer 2

The rule of thumb is - never sacrifice image size! So you should go for the max 3072x2304 - that's all 7 megapixels your camera has. The choice between SHQ and HQ is the level of compression.

Your camera saves images in JPEG format, this is a compressed image where some data is being thrown away (called lossy format). The more you compress, the more data is lost. Now, jpeg is very good at restoring the image to the point where non-professional will not likely see the difference. And for printing regular 4x6 photographs, there probably isn't much advantage. However, if storage is not a big concern - I would advice to go for SHQ anyway. You never know - maybe you'll take that shot of a lifetime, that you will want to blow up to a poster size. That's when all of it starts to matter.

Now one more thing - your camera has a 4:3 sensor. That means sides ratio is two to three. Standard 4x6 photo has 2:3 ratio. What that means - is in any picture you take, if you print it at 4x6 size, there's going to be a little cropping from top and bottom. So leave extra room there.

This is not a problem specific to your camera. Most digital cameras, save for most SLR's and a few p&s ones that have specific mode where they cut off those top and bottom parts automatically have the same side ratio. This is due to industry standard sensor sizes for p&s cameras. So you just have to live with it, I guess.

LEM.

Answer 3

Well the size the picture is doesn't really matter when you print it, because whatever program you use to print it should automatically resize it to fit the page size. So you should just pick the highest size (SHQ) and then you can print however big you want in the future. If you use the smaller sizes you might get stuck wanting to print something bigger but can't because the pics not high resolution enough.

Depending on the program you use you should be able to look and see options for making the pic automatically fit to the page or just print whatever size you want.