PCMech Forums - View Single Post - How many dots per inch is "photo quality?"

Sandgroper · 10-05-2000, 11:16 AM

I have only had experience of one direct to printer device and the drawbacks were. When viewing the small camera screen you cannot see detail, say if a picture is in full focus or not, until printed. There was a splitter cable attachment, to allow big screen viewing as well but a pain to set up. So I finished up down loading to the computer and picking the shots to print directly from camera. You may just as well down load and print from computer. The flash card reader is the way to go here, it becomes an extra "hard drive". I have even heard of burning directly to a CD! Anyway you will find that you will need the flexiblity that your software can give at sometime. I have never had a problem with image degradation when transfering files, even when using the old floppy disc. The Sony Mavica range used floppies instead of memory cards and the images were good for the quality of the rest of the camera. Main problem with moving digital images is the compression format. Camera makers have tried different formats over time some have had more success than others. JPG is pretty much the standard camera format and is quite good for most uses but it is a compression format and very often the software default is 75% compression on saving to disc. It can make enlargement a problem, so be careful. A good camera shop will take or have sample shots for you to inspect. Ask them to take a standard format picture and down load to floppy, take it home and see what you can make of it before buying.

10-05-2000, 11:16 AM	#10
Sandgroper Member (7 bit) Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Western Australia Posts: 83	I have only had experience of one direct to printer device and the drawbacks were. When viewing the small camera screen you cannot see detail, say if a picture is in full focus or not, until printed. There was a splitter cable attachment, to allow big screen viewing as well but a pain to set up. So I finished up down loading to the computer and picking the shots to print directly from camera. You may just as well down load and print from computer. The flash card reader is the way to go here, it becomes an extra "hard drive". I have even heard of burning directly to a CD! Anyway you will find that you will need the flexiblity that your software can give at sometime. I have never had a problem with image degradation when transfering files, even when using the old floppy disc. The Sony Mavica range used floppies instead of memory cards and the images were good for the quality of the rest of the camera. Main problem with moving digital images is the compression format. Camera makers have tried different formats over time some have had more success than others. JPG is pretty much the standard camera format and is quite good for most uses but it is a compression format and very often the software default is 75% compression on saving to disc. It can make enlargement a problem, so be careful. A good camera shop will take or have sample shots for you to inspect. Ask them to take a standard format picture and down load to floppy, take it home and see what you can make of it before buying.