Re: Help - Sony Cybershot T3 in China - no English manual - res problems

"Diane" <DianeGLV@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1128001341.193498.234000@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
....
> pics (windows xp) but when I open the photos in his Photoshop 7 the res
> is only 72. I'm sure I used to automatically open my old shots (on old
> stolen camera and my computer with PS7) with a res of 300.
....
Digital photos have no "resolution". They are an array of colored dots.
If you set your camera to take pictures at, say, 2592 x 1944 (5 MP),
you always get 1944 rows of 2592 dots. (assuming landscape
orientation) That's *dots*. Not dots-per-inch. There is no physical
measurement. Its 1944 rows of 2592 dots. Now, if you want to print
that picture at 4 inches by 3 inches, then those dots get squeezed
into 4 inches by 3 inches. You get 648 dots per each inch. If instead
you want to print a 40 inch by 30 inch poster, then those dots are
getting spread pretty thinly at 64.8 dots per inch. But the digital image
is still the *same*.

So, what this amounts to is that some cameras embed a DPI field
in the file as a pointless guess at an original print size. This all comes
from the historic way computer based printing developed. So
Photoshop, which comes from the same history, reads and uses that
field to present the photo as if you were printing it at that size. You
can completely ignore this. It doesn't change a thing.

Simpler photo printing programs have pretty much completely done
away with the idea that DPI defines the print size, and rather lets the
user define the print size, which in turn results in some DPI. Use the
DPI as a guide to how well the picture will print. Too low, and the
picture will look noticeably pixilated (dotted or boxy) at close viewing.

So, ignore the DPI "recommendation" from the camera. Adjust the
viewing of the picture. Decide how large to print the picture, and let
the DPI fall where they may.


--
Dan (Woj...) [dmaster](no space)[at](no space)[lucent](no space)[dot](no
space)[com]
===============================
"summer has come and passed /the innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends
ring out the bells again / like we did when spring began
wake me up when september ends"


.

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