For Web projects, the output screen will vary, depending on the computer used to view the page. Most monitors can display 640x480 or 800x600 or 1024x768. However, browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer) windows are not usually that wide. Users may have to scroll their browser windows if your image is more than say, 580x435 pixels. Generallyspeaking, a computer monitor displays 75 dots (pixels) per inch.

So,

If you want the photo to be the same size, set to 75 dpi and 100%

If you want the photo to be larger, multiply 75 dpi by how many times larger you want it to be. (If you want it to be two times larger, 75 dpi x 2 = 150 dpi.)

If you want to reduce the size, do the same. (If you want half size, 75 dpi x .5 =@ 40.)

  For printed photos, 200 dpi is about the best resolution you can get. (You can go for overkill with 300 dpi...used for special purposes.)

Scanning for printing purposes is another story! (That we won't cover today.)

Mavica and other digital cameras generally take photos that have 640x480 or greater resolution, so the photos will be plenty large for Web and multimedia projects. The FD91 has several possible resolutions: 640x480, 1024x768, and 320x240...depending on the file format chosen...see below.

For most cases,

• Set the IMAGE SIZE to 640x480 in case you want to crop the photo.
• Set the IMAGE SIZE to E-MAIL (320x240) if you know you want a smaller size and the quality is not an issue.
• If you think that you will use on a small portion of the photo, you may wish to set IMAGE SIZE to 1024x768.

Digital photography for printing purposes has different requirements!
 
 

• For color photos, select True Color, RGB, 16.7 million colors. (You would select this setting even if you were going to convert the photo to grays later. BUT if you want a gray output and you are not going to be using imaging software to edit it, go ahead and use the B&W setting below.)

 
• For black and white photos, and line art for the Web, select B&W Photo (gray scale, 256 shades of gray)


Again, line art for printing and OCR are not covered here.

File Formats

The highest quality cross-platform image is .TIF.  Windows computers read high-quality .BMP files and Macintosh computers read high-quality .PICT files. The three types of files are very large and at normal photo size will not fit on a floppy disk. EPS format files are high-quality files that are used for color-separation printing.

Web browsers can display .JPG files and .GIF files. JPG is best for photographs, but GIF is good for graphics only because is displays many fewer colors than JPG. JPG files are smaller than TIF files, but lose quality each time they are edited.

• If you know that you want the image for the Web only and you aren't going to edit it heavily, then save the file as a .JPG. If you have the option, select "high" quality or 90% quality.

• If you will be needing to edit the file later and you have enough room on your disk, save the file as .TIF with no LZW.

The Mavica FD91 will save in three formats, JPG, MPEG, and BMP.

• For nice Web photos in JPG format, set QUALITY to FINE.

• If you need to take a really high quality digital photo for archiving or editing and you have a floppy disk for each photo, set the camera to IMAGE SIZE 1024x768 and QUALITY to FINE. (This will result in a 1024x768 JPG and a 640x480 BMP.)

NEXT: SCANNING PHOTOGRAPHS WITH VISTASCAN