Topic: 72 dpi camera

OK, after several years of thinking about taking more pictures- I finally have taken the effort and snapped a couple this past weekend. Now I am using a Polaroid 72 dpi digital camera my mom bought for me 2 years ago. Perfect for web, but when I print out - pictures come out not as clear as I?d like.

Is there something I can do to make the pictures clearer? Maybe:
- export as .tif and increase res to 150?
- Use Adjustments in PS?
- Am I screwed?

I am at work now and can post some examples later on tonight.

Thanks.
CRO8

Keep in mind that DPI isn't part of the actual image data. It's just a number in the header of the file. So it isn't a 72dpi camera, it's a 1024x768 camera or a 2048x1536 camera or whatever. The industry also uses 'megapixel' to rate this in a more vague manner.

If you can give me the size of the images the camera generates (width and height in pixels), and the size you want your prints, I can make some suggestions.

ok I am home. Image it generates is 640x480 pixels. As for size I want it to be . . . hmmm. How about 8.5 x 11?

brownstones.tif
Lions.tif

Thanks.
CRO8

Wow. 640x480 is pretty, um... small.

At that size, I'm not sure you could make a 3x5 print without sacrificing quality.


I'm not a photography buff or anything, but if I remember correctly, a 3 megapixel camera (2048x1536) usually makes a nice 4x6 (maybe 5x7) print. For a 8.5x11, you'd need one of those professional cameras that gets like 10mp [EDIT: OK, I clearly don't know anything about photography... ].



[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 08-19-2003).]

[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 08-19-2003).]

By a nice little "rhyme of Time(ing)" i have just read this tutorial Creating Printable Images by jmsetzler. I think that should cover everthing.
I have just viewed your photographs in PS. You may want to run a little USM on "brownstones" (but I suppose you know what effect you want), as a suggestion.

Yeah, that's a useful chart there. I've been looking for something like that.

In CRO8's case though, I think that a camera that produces 640x480 images just wasn't made for printing.

72dpi is the standard for computer monitors, not paper (where 300dpi seems to be prevalent). Simply increasing the dpi of the image will do you no good, as you're not adding any extra detail to accomodate for the size.

My only suggestion would be to go out and buy a new digital camera, one that will give you at least 3mp. It'll cost you, but the prices have come down a lot over the past year, I think.

Edit: Posted from work and headed out without checking. Couple of posts had snuck in before this one. The 'not quite', below, was in reference to needing a 10MP+ camera for an 8" x 10". Sorry for any confusion.

Not quite. I have an excellent, photo-quality 12" x 16" print on my wall from my 6MP Canon SLR. An 11MP Canon 1Ds can print past 20"x30" and still look great.

Still, once you get down to around 100dpi, you start to get pretty poor results. 640x480 will give you adequate 4x6 prints. Not really good, but not terrible.

From brownstones.tif, it looks like the camera has serious sharpness issues. Try using an unsharp mask in Photoshop, with values around Amount:200%, Radius:0.8, Threshold 0. I know the numbers look odd, but it's a fairly typical setting to counter the AA mask in a digital camera.

You're also getting poor saturation. You could increase saturation by about 30-50 for a decent print.

I don't know why the camera is having so much trouble capturing detail. I can't give any suggestions for that.

I doubt you'll ever get real photo-quality prints from that camera, sorry.

[This message has been edited by Das (edited 08-19-2003).]

Thanks for the advice. I will shop around for a better camera and try to play with the current photos in PS.

Thanks!

You... are Screwed.

1600 x 1200 pixel image:
5.33" x 4.00" @ 300 DPI
10.67" x 8.00" @ 150 DPI
22.22" x 16.67" @ 72 DPI


Jason

I don't think I agree with the chart up there. Every pro photography book I've seen gives 240dpi - 300dpi as the highest possible quality image.

Most people cannot tell a 300dpi image from a 600 dpi (or higher) image, no matter how close they look. We're talking nose to the paper, here.

Most people also cannot tell a 240dpi image from a 480 (or higher) from any realistic distance (say 8" or so). To say 200dpi is 'decent' quality is pretty harsh (imo)

I normally start to see quality noticably degrade at about 150 dpi or so.

another thing to consider is that you don't always need as high as resolution at bigger sizes. i've done 11x17 posters in ps at 150dpi and they look great.

as far as digicam-specific printing, camera reviews i've read have indicated 1600x1200 for 5x7 inch prints and 2048x1536 for 8x10's (which about lines up with what's been said).


KAIROSinteractive

heh if you are wanting to print out 8*10 sizes .. just get one that is around 1.3mp or higher ... i have for many years taken photos with a 1.3 camera and printed out good photo quality images ... even now the camera i use for work is a tad over 2mp ...

the advantage of having a higher mp in a camera is you have more that you can crop out of the image and still have a good quality image left ...

imo what is more important in a digital camera .. is if it has optical zoom ... and if the settings are adjustible (ISO, fstop, shutter speed. etc... )

you can pick up a dig cam that will print out the size you want for around 240 or a little less at walmart ...

I agree. I have a small crop from the middle of a 6MP image of two tigers. I printed it at 12" x 16", and the first thing people say (after "WOW!") is "it's so sharp!"

I think the final DPI was about 150 or 160.

in response to what most people can't tell the difference between .. most people can't look at an image printed at 72dpi and one printed at 200dpi and tell a difference if it is done on a good printer (less there is a lot of gradients in the image then it will show more) ...

at my workplace we print everything at 150dpi ... even with the 2mp camera i can crop half the image away and still have a good quality print ...

A correction:
The print that gets the "Wow - SHARP" comments was around 150-160 dpi when I got done working on it, but I've discovered that my printing program upsamples images before printing. It uses pretty sophisticated resampling logic, so the print probably wouldn't have looked quite as good printed straight to the printer at the resolution.

what software das?

chris


KAIROSinteractive

It was QImage.

I'm starting to wonder about all these resizing packages, though. I just did another 12"x16" print, and this time I used a stairstep bicubic upscaling in Photoshop, and printed directly from Photoshop. I did a test with QImage vs Photoshop (using a 4x6 crop, to avoid blowing >$1 a sheet paper). I couldn't tell the difference.

I still have a few runs left on my trial of Genuine Fractals, and am going to do some upsizing tests.

I've already proved to myself that downsizing by stairstepped bicubic resizings in Photoshop is virtually identical to Genuine Fractals quality. Both techniques were vastly superior to a single bicubic resize in Photoshop. If upsizing is comperable, I'll stick to the stairstepping, otherwise I might be buying GF (it's $160).