Digital Camera,Camcorder,Film Cameras,Printers Scanners, more accessories.

In digital photography, resolution is a measure of how many pixels make up a digital picture. It has become the holy grail of digital photography, as manufacturers compete to produce cameras with ever-higher pixel counts - the number of pixels in the camera's image sensor, which determines how many will be in the actual picture.

The resolution of digital cameras is measured in megapixels, with a megapixel being a million pixels. The more pixels a camera has, generally the better the quality of its photographs, though other factors also greatly influence picture quality.

With most digital point-and-shoot cameras, you can actually choose a lower resolution than the camera's advertised maximum, which is where it's set when you take it out of the box. You do this by entering the shooting menu and selecting the "Image Size" or "Resolution" option (see Figure 1). When you do that, you'll see a series of number pairs such as these:

• 2048 x 1536

• 1600 x 1200

• 1280 x 960

• 1024 x 768

• 640 x 480

Figure 1: Most digital point-and-shoots offer adjustable resolution settings, selected with the camera's menu screen.

The highest number pair represents pretty much all the pixels available in the camera's image sensor. When you turn on your camera for the first time, it's usually preset to this top resolution level. In most cases, you should probably keep it at that setting.

If you want to make good prints - not necessarily now, but even sometime in the future - keep your camera set to its top resolution level. If you want smaller picture files to email, you can always downsize them after the fact with computer software.

Setting a lower resolution level creates a smaller-sized picture file-that is, one that has fewer bytes, whether megabytes or just kilobytes (thousands of bytes). You can also create a smaller file by lowering the "picture quality" level. When you do this, the camera doesn't use all its individual pixels; instead, it bunches the smaller pixels into bigger ones, perhaps using four to make one. The smaller file this produces means the camera can fit more pictures on a memory card. So, get a bigger memory card, or two.

A better reason to set lower resolution is if you really don't expect, ever, to print a picture or pictures. (If this is the case, you probably have more camera than you need!) If you just want to email pictures or put them on a Web site, and are satisfied just to look at them on a computer screen, go ahead and turn down the resolution. Here are a few suggestions:

• If you want to make good-quality 5 x 7-inch prints, set the camera to at least the 2048 x 1536 resolution. If you have a 3-megapixel model, this will be your top resolution; if you have a 4-megapixel model, it will probably be one notch down. This setting may also produce acceptable 8 x 10 prints, depending on other camera factors. If you expect to make lots of 8 x 10s and want them to be high quality, though, you should probably be shooting with a 4-megapixel (or higher) model left at its top resolution setting.

• If you want to make good 4 x 6-inch prints, set the camera at least to the 1600 x 1200 resolution. If you have a 3-megapixel model, this will probably be one notch down.

• If you want to make a picture that will only be viewed on a computer screen, but at a screen-filling size, the 1024 x 768 setting should be sufficient.

• If you want a picture that will be viewed at a small size on a computer screen, or on a standard (not HDTV) television set, 640 x 480 will do.

When you adjust the resolution downward, you'll see the little number on the viewing screen and/or LCD panel that tells you how many more pictures you can fit on the card go up and up. Set 640 x 480, and you'll be able to fit hundreds if not thousands of pictures on a decent-sized memory card. Enough said! There's no need to make the resolution issue any more complicated than that.