what is the best picture size to set my digital camera settings to?

Question

I have a Pentax Optio33WR

I don't mean mega pixels I mean between 2048 x 1536 and 640x480 as these are the options that my camera gives me - it is a 3.2 mega pixels pentax camera

Answer 1

I always take and store the pictures at the max size the camera will do. You only get one chance to capture an image, and if you throw away pixels, you don't ever get them back.

Now if the pictures are "just for fun" or you want to send them out on email, cut down the size after they are on your computer. And delete old ones regularly.

But pictures that are long term keepers should be saved at the highest quality you can get. In 20 years you may want 11x14 enlargements. You never know.

Good Luck

Answer 2

Here are a few tips.
Always set your camera to it's highest resolution. If you are going to bother to take pics. what's the point in cramming as many pics as you can on a small card?
Memory cards are very cheap now anyway.
If you need to re-size them for sending by email then you can do that after.
Most well known brands of camera will give you all you want in a photo.
With the point and shoot ones use the special modes for taking your pics. In most cameras it will optimise your image for quality and shooting conditions and usually knows better than the user no matter what level of photography they understand.
So if you are going to take a portrait of someone then set the camera to portrait mode, if you are going to do a night scene set it to that or if you are in bright sunlight set it to that etc. etc. I think you will get my drift.
Also read the manual and try to understand your cameras setting, after all you wouldn't spend that much on a mobile phone and not learn to use it would you?
Follow these few simple rules and you should produce some nice photos.
Sarah C's answer is not accurate enough and she is wrong with the printing resolution.
Although pixels are important up to a point we are being mis-lead into thinking that image quality is down to how many pixels there are in an image. You can have a perfect picture printed at 2880 dpi from a 2.6 megapixel image. QUALITY OF THE CAMERA is vital particularly the quality of the lens.
The resolution at which cameras SAVE images not TAKE them varies from 72 to 300 dpi the higher number usually in pro cameras.
PRINTING at 300 dpi would be total rubbish you need to got to at least 2880 dpi. But don't get trapped into thinking that you will be able to see much difference at 5760 dpi, usually there is no difference (depending on paper) you only use more ink.
Printers are calibrated in line per millimetre LPM just to confuse things and the perfect human eye can only see about 10 so going above that just means more ink and wasted money.
Remember when printing many factors govern the outcome. Camera settings, printer settings, ink quality, and paper.
Also another tip for everyone, fill your memory card BEFORE formatting because you will wear it out and shorten the life if you keep formatting the same part of the card.

Answer 3

It depends what you want to do with the photos. As a rough guide, cameras take photos at 72dpi (dots per inch). And printing wants to be done at 300 dpi.

So a 6 x 7" photo has 6 x 300 pixels along one side and 7 x 300 pixels along the other.
Now you know that, you can work out the size you need for any size photo. Personally, I reckon the bigger the better; that way you have room to crop the photo without making it too small to print.

Images for the screen and web can be at 72dpi so a smaller file size is used; better for sending over the internet.

Answer 4

On a 3.2Mp camera, certainly set it to the largest, highest resolution....Unless you find this slows the camera down, as in the actual click at taking, becomes lagged, and pictures slighly blur. Blur will be more noticable, zoomed in.
This is because, at higher resolution, the camera has to "digest" more pixel information, very quickly.
This is the difference between a cheap camera, and a good one, of the same pixel count. The speed of the proccessor, proccessing all those pixels..before the person walks out of shot!!

Answer 5

Always go for as many pixels as you can (as you can always reduce it later but not regain the lost information) set the compression between medium quality and high quality. the raw Tiff and Extra High quality waste memory size for Little improvement in picture the very low quality loses important detail.

better to get a few more memory cards... remember once the moment and the picture data have gone they are gone forever better to keep it as true and high res as possible until you want to make a copy of lower res to suit purpose.

remember a A4 print needs at least 4M pixels and ideally 5M to print well and for A3 its 8 or 9M pixels. 1 M cameras are only good for showing pictures on phone screens or on 2" square windows on PC'S

Answer 6

Always set it to the biggest number so you can get the best picture from all of your mega pixels. You can always make them smaller after you down load them and if you want to blow them up, they will still look good.

Answer 7

the default size of sending an image through internet and especially mail is VGA[640 x 480]. now the mail's antivirus operator does not accept more than VGA resolution pictures as they are aware of the viruses spreading through them. so they do not allow images more than VGA. but one thing is that u can send a file or image of any size to ur girlfriend if u have the yahoo! messenger by using the "send file" function.

Answer 8

3 megapixels is usually good enough unless you want to make close-ups, then use your highest resolution. Most printers with glossy photo paper will give good results with 3 megapixel resolution.

Answer 9

Itdepends on what you are going to do whith the pics ifyou are going to email them use the smallest size but for prints use the larger one.

Answer 10

i h ave a fuji finepix set at 6 million pixels its vv good