I would like to enlarge one of my pictures to 11X14 size. I read that a picture needs to be 6.2 Megapixels to be able to enlarge it to 11 X 14. If the picture is smaller than 6.2 Megapixels, then the enlargement will be grainy. Question: How can I figure out how many Megapixels a photo has?
Find your photo dimensions, (with windows you right click go to properties, then click details to find the dimensions.) you then multiply the width by the height. 6.2 Megapixels is 6,200,000 pixels.
Or you can do a google search for your camera, and look up the specs.
@sudweeks
Thank you so much! This is the information I needed. I learn new things each day. This was a major "learning" for me.
This leads me to my next question. Some of my pictures have enough megapixels and some do not, even though they were taken with the same camera. Can I increase the number of megapixels of the picture or do I have to retake the picture and save it again with hopefully higher megapixels?
Kathryn, you have a couple of options here. First of all, what camera are you using? I am unsure why, but none of your photos contain any EXIF data.
Any photo you take with the same camera should be the same resolution, or the same megapixels. I'm confused why it would be different from one photo to the next.
Unless, of course, you are cropping the photos. There are two ways to crop photos: cutting off excess pixels and redistributing the pixels. I don't know if you use Aperture, Photoshop, or something online such as Pixlr, but here is what the two ways mean.
First, if you cut off the excess pixels that means you are actually loosing resolution. If your photo was 3,000 pixels x 2,000 to start off, and you decide you only need half the photo, you will crop the photo at just 1,500 pixels x 1,000 pixels. You have effectively just gone from 6 Megapixels down to 3 Megapixels. This is the wrong way to crop photos.
The correct way is to redistribute the pixels. Using the crop tool, you determine what resolution you want for your cropped photo. Let's say you want to make an 8"x10" print, that would be a resolution of 2,400 pixels x 3,000 pixels. So, now if you crop a photo with resolution 3,000 x 2,000 pixels, you are actually making the resolution bigger, but with programs like Photoshop this is fine.
So, what this all comes down to is how you crop the photos. Remember: maximum print resolution is 300 pixels per inch. If you want a print 11"x14", you need 3,300 pixels x 4,200 pixels. Remember this while cropping your photos. Does this help?
@triptych_angel When you use the crop tool in Photoshop, you have the option of setting the width, height, and DPI manually. Set it to the width and height that corresponds with the size print you want.
For example, my favorite print size is 8"x12", which means I crop at 2,400 pixels x 3,600 pixels.
My camera shoots photos at around 4,000 pixels x 3,100 pixels. Sometimes when I crop, I'm just cutting away excess pixels. Other times, though, I may crop only half the photo, or just 2,000 pixels, but Photoshop redistributes the pixels to make it 3,600 pixels. Does that make sense?
@jasonbarnette doesn't make an iota of sense to me. Redistributing pixels? Cropping means cropping, nothing more nothing less - physically chopping stuff out of an image, altering its physical dimension, but not changing the dpi or modifying the pixels that you leave in the image. Anything else isn't cropping, and needs another word, like resizing, or downsampling, or something.
@jasonbarnette Thanks for your help! Parts of what you said make sense and parts are murky to me (perhaps due to a bad headache). I will look at this once the headache is gone and see what I can do. To answer your questions: I have an Olympus SP-800 UZ. I am not certain why the EXIF information is not uploading. I am not certain why the pictures are various sizes. I think it has something to do with the processing. I am using an older version of Photoshop to tweak the contrast and the brightness of some of the pictures, but crop only a few pictures. I use Photoshop to add my name and date. I hope to soon switch over to Picasa or some other software to watermark my photos. However, I have to get over my headache first. Thank you again for all of your advice. I am learning and I feel like I am closer to solving this issue.
@jasonbarnette My headache is down to a low roar today. I started looking at my pictures. The ones taken on low light days seem to be 4.9 megapixels and the ones taken on sunny days taken on sunny days seem to be 13.8 megapixels. Does this make sense? My camera is a 14 megapixel. I do not know a lot about exposure. Could exposure be the difference?
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Or you can do a google search for your camera, and look up the specs.
Thank you so much! This is the information I needed. I learn new things each day. This was a major "learning" for me.
This leads me to my next question. Some of my pictures have enough megapixels and some do not, even though they were taken with the same camera. Can I increase the number of megapixels of the picture or do I have to retake the picture and save it again with hopefully higher megapixels?
Any photo you take with the same camera should be the same resolution, or the same megapixels. I'm confused why it would be different from one photo to the next.
Unless, of course, you are cropping the photos. There are two ways to crop photos: cutting off excess pixels and redistributing the pixels. I don't know if you use Aperture, Photoshop, or something online such as Pixlr, but here is what the two ways mean.
First, if you cut off the excess pixels that means you are actually loosing resolution. If your photo was 3,000 pixels x 2,000 to start off, and you decide you only need half the photo, you will crop the photo at just 1,500 pixels x 1,000 pixels. You have effectively just gone from 6 Megapixels down to 3 Megapixels. This is the wrong way to crop photos.
The correct way is to redistribute the pixels. Using the crop tool, you determine what resolution you want for your cropped photo. Let's say you want to make an 8"x10" print, that would be a resolution of 2,400 pixels x 3,000 pixels. So, now if you crop a photo with resolution 3,000 x 2,000 pixels, you are actually making the resolution bigger, but with programs like Photoshop this is fine.
So, what this all comes down to is how you crop the photos. Remember: maximum print resolution is 300 pixels per inch. If you want a print 11"x14", you need 3,300 pixels x 4,200 pixels. Remember this while cropping your photos. Does this help?
For example, my favorite print size is 8"x12", which means I crop at 2,400 pixels x 3,600 pixels.
My camera shoots photos at around 4,000 pixels x 3,100 pixels. Sometimes when I crop, I'm just cutting away excess pixels. Other times, though, I may crop only half the photo, or just 2,000 pixels, but Photoshop redistributes the pixels to make it 3,600 pixels. Does that make sense?