Printing and resolution

[jrh312]

I'm getting a new digital in a couple of weeks and it has the potential to take pictures at a much higher resolution than my current camera. The memory card is somewhat small, and in the interest of conserving space until I get a bigger one, I'm curious:

Let's say I want to print a 5x7", for example. I could take the photo at a resolution meant for 5x7" printing, or I could take the photo at a much higher resolution and just resize it before printing. Would doing the latter ruin any of the photo quality because it's being resized or would it actually make the print look better since it was taken at a high resolution?

[kevin_c]

To print a 5x7 at 300ppi (pixels per inch) will require a 1500 x 2100 pixel image (A 3.15 M pixel camera)
You could take much 'larger' image and re-size it later in photoshop, but in re-sizing it will 'loose' a certain amount of sharpness if nothing else - This is easily corrected in PS though. A larger image also give you room to adjust 'wonky' horizons and crop etc.

What camera do you intend getting, a point & shoot or a DSLR?
Most P&S cameras will automatically sharpen and boost contrast etc. 'in-camera' to make acceptable prints strainght off the memory card - Most DSLR's will not, and will require a certain amount of post-processing.

[jrh312]

I think I've pretty much settled on the Olympus C-765, it's a 4Mp and can take photos up to 2288 x 1712. I wanted something with high optical zoom and a good macro mode, and that seems to suit it better than most others I've seen.

[kevin_c]

I don't know this camera personaly but it will easily give you 7x5's at 300ppi.
You can get acceptable prints at lower resolutions - at, for example 200ppi, this will give you approx 11.5" x 8.5" (2288/200=11.44 and 1712/200=8.56) , so you will have room to crop slightly if needed.
I personaly would not go any lower than 200ppi though, although I'm sure other people will tell you they have had good prints from lower resolutions, I've yet to see one myself. The industry standard resolution for prints up to about 15" x 10" is 300ppi, above this in size and you can drop down to 254ppi (don't ask me why this figure is quoted).

[Loki1117]

This is just a guess, but since 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters, it is putting the ppi into an easily convertable ppc (pixels per centimeter) for metric comparisons.

[kevin_c]

Ahh...