I have taken several pix using the Nikon Coolpix 950 (way cool camera)using factory settings and automatic everything at 1600x1200 on fine mode. After downloading and viewing in HotPix and Adobe PhotoShop, the resolution appears very poor. When comparing my pix to Imaging Resource at the same settings, yours on the net are far superior. I contacted Dell and my Latitude can use only 256 colors but can still show your pix in great resolution. Why can't I see my Nikon pix at the web site quality?

-- Elaine Holcomb (but2go@juno.com), April 30, 1999

Answers

Elaine, I wouln't be too concerned about the quality as displayed on a laptop. I experience the same thing. Without going into all the various specs, let me say that both my laptop and desktop are high end systems. While the desktop has the edge in specifications, you would not expect a great difference in displaying images. Not so. When displaying the same image on both machines, the desktop blows away the laptop. LCD panels are just not up there with CRT displays yet.

I think you will be very happy with your images if you print them on a good printer. They shold look better than your display. Isn't the 950 great? I love mine.

Steve

-- Steve (tuna-boat-captain@ibm.net), May 01, 1999.

Elaine, if I understand your problem correctly, you are getting good resolution when viewing web pics but poor resolution when viewing your CP950 pics, with both viewed on the same PC. If that is correct, I would look at how you are loading the camera files into the PC. The CP950 pics are a way far better (higher resolution) when loaded properly into your PC than anything viewed on the web. Ask for help from some of the techies and they will give you the correct method for your camera. I'm just giving you a non-technical opinion based on my experience with my own CP900. Good Luck.

-- Bob Benson (benson@gbasin.com), May 01, 1999.

Is it possible that the software being used to download or view your images is preset to save them at a lower resolution or higher jpeg compression ratio than the images are stored at on the camera? I had this problem with my Toshiba PDR-M1 the first time I downloaded and saved images. When I opened the images to view them or print them I noticed that the file sizes were much smaller than the originals. A bit of flipping through the manual and looking through the software showed me that they were AUTOMATICALLY being saved at a higher compression ratio by the download/editing software than the images were being stored at on the camera. Brilliant! This obviously made quite a difference both in printing and viewing the images. You can bet that I corrected that in a hurry and reloaded and resaved the images. Just a thought, hope it helps.

Another thing to remember is that if you're storing them in Jpeg or another compressed format and opening and closing them with programs that automatically resave them they're getting compressed over and over again resulting in lower resolution. You may be inadvertently doing the same thing with your editing programs. The best way to avoid this is to save images in tiff or bmp formats until all the editing is done then compress and save them as jpegs if desired for long term storage. If you knew all that, well, it was worth a shot.

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), May 01, 1999.