The purpose of the print determines the resolution that you need. Purpose of the Print Small Prints (High DPI)
After all, your high-resolution camera has some other advantages as well. Surprised? Wondering why you fell for that gimmicky ad that promised a 30-megapixel sensor when all you needed was merely 3.15 megapixels to make a decent print? Don’t feel that bad. This is the formula to determine the number of megapixels required for a 5 x 7″ print at 300 DPI.ĥ x 300 x 7 x 300 / 1,000,000 = 3.15 Megapixels. Related Post: Best Photo Printers Formula to Determine Print Size from Image Resolution Read the rest of this discussion before you make up your mind. It may appear though I am suggesting that you opt for a higher resolution camera. The more the megapixels your images have larger the size you can print. Now, the maximum size that you can print an image to will depend on the number of megapixels on your pictures. Large Format Printing: What is a pixel and how many do you need? For indoors wall hanging photos aim for 300 DPI (dots per inch), for outdoor billboards (seen from far) less DPI are ok. Pixels, in fact, are what make up the surface of the digital sensor. They play an important role in the print size of your images. At the bottom of the pixel, a wiring connects it to the image processor. These filters will absorb either red, blue or green light and reflect every other wavelength of light. On top of that, the individual pixels also have microfilters. They have a small space to capture the photons in the light. That invariably leads to this question: What are pixels? Pixels are Picture Elements, the tiniest element that is controllable on the sensor.Įach digital image that you see on a computer screen is made up of millions of these tiny pixels.Įach tiny pixel is a light sensitive photodiode. That is a lot of tiny pixels packed on to a small sensor surface. If a full-frame camera has, for example, 22 megapixels that is 22 million pixels. So one megapixel is one million tiny individual pixels.
I am not going to go too deep into what professionals think because opinions are beyond the purview of this discussion. “Megapixel” is a camera manufacturer’s favorite word.įor a newbie photographer too, the word has immense significance.