Digital Photography resolution

For commercial printing, not photos, 300dpi is good enough unless you want to print larger images. For photos, like glossy papers, 2400dpi is very good, though higher res is now out in the market. For scanners, this will be a bit confusing, you see,if you have a scanner with 600x600dpi, even though you set your scan res to 1000dpi, the print will still be bad. But if you have a 1200x1200 scanner, even you set your scanned pic to just 300dpi, it will still be clear when you print.

300 DPI is the "reasonable" limit for standard commercial printing.

300 DPI, is also the practical limit for "standard" printer paper. Higher resolution tends to wet the paper too much, and can result in a blurry image.

As to digital photography, there are many variables to consider.
Even the best photo printers do not produce true 1200 DPI images unless you are using high quality photo paper.

I have progressed from a 640*480 to a 1.2MPixel digital camera.
My next camera will be at least a 4MPixel.

Beyond raw resolution, the next most important item to consider is the quality of the optics on the camera.
For a given resolution, the better the optics, the better the picture.

The major reason for higher resolution cameras and scanners is to allow you to enlarge an image.
if you have a 600 DPI image, and enlarge it by 10X, you now have a 60 DPI image.

Chas

The Computer user had quite a few articles on this subject this past year, basically 640X480 is picture quality at about 1x1 1/2, 1024x768 will take you to a 2x3 and 2 megapixel looks ok at 6x4, in order to do 8x10's you need a 4 meapixel or better and the current digital foto cameras are being replaced this year with a new way of capturing the image. the current ones use one color and extrapolate/interpret the others for the file and the new line coming out this winter will be true 3 color blending for each pixel. If money is not an option, wait for the new ones. If money is a limitting factor, wait for the new ones then buy the old. Prices should drop well this winter and spring. Otherwise, look at the pixel count and then /by 300 to 600 whichever printer setting you would use and figure how close the camera would be to the true drawn color to a true picture, and that is your size limit for a photo quality picture.

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