Take a look at Figure 1-3. On the right is a detail from a picture taken at 640?—480 pixels.
On the left is the same detail, but it??™s cropped from a 3.3-megapixel image. As you can see, the
smaller image has fewer pixels to work with, and that??™s why it looks so grainy. Obviously, you
need lots of pixels to print pictures at a large size, and that??™s why each year we see ever largerresolution
digital cameras hitting store shelves.
FIGURE 1-1 The earliest digital cameras with CMOS sensors (left) typically offered poor
image quality compared to those with CCDs (right).
CHAPTER 1: Go Digital 7
FIGURE 1-2 The resolution of a digital camera, usually measured in megapixels, is just
the total number of pixels in the photos it is capable of taking, like this
hypothetically low-res 244-pixel camera.
Resolution: 16 ?— 14 = 244 pixels
16 pixels
14 pixels
FIGURE 1-3 More megapixels means more resolution, which is handy for changing the
composition of your picture through cropping, as well as for making goodquality
prints.
8 How to Do Everything: Digital Camera
The Future of Digital Cameras
Camera manufacturers will probably always try to pack a few more megapixels into their
cameras. Of course, that doesn??™t mean you always need to be on the lookout for a new camera
with more resolution.
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