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Microsoft Picture It! Companion Guide
Chapter 2: Making the Most of Your Camera
10
Approx. JPEG file size
Dimensions Total pixels (with slight compression*) Maximum print size
320 x 240 76,800 23 KB Wallet size
640 x 480 307,200 91 KB 4” x 6”
1280 x 960 1,228,800 363 KB 5” x 7”
(1.2 megapixels)
1600 x 1200 1,920,000 576 KB 8” x 10”
(1.9 megapixels)
2,048 x 1,536 3,145,728 970 KB 11” x 14” and larger
(3.1 megapixels)
* Compression, which is explained in the following section, varies by camera, so you may find
different file size results.
Instead of film, a digital camera uses an image sensor—usually a CCD (charge-
coupled device) or CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) chip—
to capture the visual information when you take a photo. The image sensor on a
simple, low-resolution camera might capture just over 76,000 pixels. The image
sensor on a high-quality digital camera might capture more than 6 megapixels.
As you can imagine, the 6-megapixel camera can produce very large, high-
quality photos (with very large files). The 76,000-pixel camera can capture a
relatively small number of pixels, so photo quality would be fair to poor, even
at small print sizes.
On many cameras, you can set the resolution at which the image sensor
captures the photo. As a rule of thumb, always shoot at the highest resolution
possible—you’ll get higher-resolution photos that you can print in larger sizes.
However, in some cases you may want to lower the resolution so that the files
will be smaller. This allows you to store more photos on the camera’s storage
media, but you must sacrifice some quality for quantity.
Make sure to check your camera’s manual to find out what resolution you will
get from the photo-quality settings on your camera. Beware of settings that
offer “enhanced” or “interpolated” resolution. These features add extra pixels
not found in the original photo to produce a higher-resolution photo, but may
reduce overall sharpness or quality.
Megapixel rating
One of the main
factors in the price of a
digital camera is its
megapixel rating. The
megapixel rating
indicates the maximum
number of pixels (in
millions) that are
captured by the
camera’s image
sensor.