What minimum resolution should I look for in a digital still camera for best output in color printing with a high-end color laser printer? Much obliged for responses.

-- Richard H. Francis (Dick) (dfrancis@mercury.net), November 14, 1998

Answers

My experience with printing megapixel images (specifically from a Olympus D600L) on a Tek Phaser 340 is that the output quality is limited by the (600 dpi) color laser printer, even at full page size. This combo can produce an acceptable image if most of the colors in the image are dark. Large areas of white make the dithering really obvious.

A Tek Phaser also has very high "dot gain", despite being a wax printer. If you plan to use it as your primary output device, you might want to shoot with AE comp +1 stop or so to combat the printer's tendancy to darken everything.

To answer a slightly different question, if you have a continuous tone output device (such as a dye sub printer) to get photographic quality you need 200 dpi (so 1600x2000 for 8x10) but you can get by with 120 if you're not going to get within 6" or so (around 1280x1024 for 8x10).

-- Ben Jackson (ben@ben.com), November 14, 1998.