On a typical
inkjet printer, you??™d get a photograph that measured just three inches across.
Then came megapixel. Mega means million, and the term simply refers to the maximum
number of pixels the camera can capture. A megapixel camera can create an image with a million
pixels, for example, 1000?—1000 or 860?—1200 or any other pixel dimension that multiplies out
to about a million dots of information (see Figure 1-2 for a graphic depiction of how a picture
is composed of pixels). The first megapixel cameras raised the bar for everyone. Like owning
last year??™s laptop with a slow processor, no one wanted to own a VGA camera. Then came twomegapixel
cameras. Then three.
Today, go into any camera store and you??™ll find an array of cameras that capture anywhere
from 4 to 10 megapixels. And it doesn??™t end there. Some high-end point-and-shoot and Digital
SLR models take pictures with 12 million pixels and more. Why the fuss over pixels? Well, as
I alluded to earlier, the more pixels you have, the sharper your image is, and consequently the
larger it can be printed. If you??™d like to print a digital photo at 8?—10 or larger, for instance, a
VGA or 1-megapixel camera simply won??™t cut it??”each pixel would be the size of a postage
stamp.
Pages:
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50