I recently purchased a Fuji Finepix 4700z. Because this is my first venture into digital cameras, I am slightly confused with the options of image quality and file size. Could you please inform me what are the settings I require for printing out 6x4 & 8x10 images. I have an Epson 750photo printer. Am I correct in saying that (Fine 1280:1,280 x 960 pixels)is the best settings for normal photos? If so could you also tell me what settings to use for sending pictures by email. My main problem is I am confused by the relationship of FINE, NORMAL, BASIC 2400:2,400 x 1800 pixels, 1280:1,280 x 960 pixels, 640:640 x 480 pixels.

-- Tom Joshua (tom.joshua@cwcom.net), August 12, 2000

Answers

The basic rule of thumb for printing is 300PPI (pixels per inch), in some cases you may want to relax this a bit to get larger prints.

It's easy to calculate, just divide the resolution you captured at by the PPI you're printing at: 2048/300 = 6.82" x 1536/300 = 5.12" so you get a ~7 x 5" print @ 300PPI. You can stretch this in either direction, but most images don't look as good at close distances with less than 200 - 240PPI. In the past I've printed some photos at much lower resolutions (128PPI) and been happy with the results. Sometimes it works well, it really depends on the image.

The Fine, Normal, and Basic settings are more likely the compression settings, not the resolution settings. Fine produces larger files with less compression and basic produces much smaller files with more compression. The more compression you introduce the greater the chance that you will introduce visible artifacts into the image. There should be a good deal of info in the manual about this sort of thing.

For email you can usually get by with 640x480 images. It's probably best to take your images at the higher resolution settings and then reduce them with the included software unless you're sure you'll only want email quality images. Most software allows you to increase the compression settings and save the file under a different name. Generally speaking, you want email images with a file size under 100KBytes. 50-60K is even better for most images. Basically, you have to decide for yourself just how much you can compress an image before it starts to be affected by the compression setting.

If it helps, I usually only use the normal setting on my Toshiba PDR-M70, saving the Fine mode for shots I'd really like to ensure are as perfect as possible. If you have enough storage space in the camera, use the best mode you can find. You can always compress later. I default to the normal mode because I find that level of compression doesn't visually affect my images and it gives me almost 50% more shots at a time on a smartmedia card.(19 instead of 13)

Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), August 12, 2000.