poor print from compact

[budmo]

Please remind me again--When I open a raw from my D70s in elements 6 it comes out at 240pp(tiff) and prints well but the output from my daughters little samsung(10mg) opens at 72pp as a jpeg and gives a poor print. I have tried resizing in elements but it doesnt improve much. Am i expecting too much from the compact?. thanks Budmo.

[GeoffWessex]

One of the problems with the compact, 'point and shoot' cameras is that, even though they may have as many megapixels, the receptors on the smaller sensor are much more densely packed together. That said, you can still get good results as long as you don't push the ISO - in fact 200 is about the realistic limit for anything like print quality. If you look up your two cameras on DPReview you can compare the 'pixel density' and comparative size of sensors. The compact camera has also compressed the picture into a Jpeg (though at the moment of taking the picture it was actually a Raw).

[ianpinion]

Hi Budmo,

One thing to check is what quality picture quality setting the compact is set on and if it's not on the highest quality setting then change it to it. You might not get so many photos on your memory card, but the camera won't throw away as much of the light values and the picture quality will be much better.

[chris-p]

I think you may also be confusing dpi and ppi.

Remember that you camera, computer and monitor have no concept of dots or inches. It is relatively common that compact cameras encode the 72ppi size into their jpeg processing algorithms. There are many theories as to why this is done, but the most commonly accepted one is that it automatically enlarges the size of the prints (it, of course, has no effect on the pixel by pixel dimensions).

Without seeing the images themselves its difficult to say if you're pushing the limits of the compact but 72dpi printing is relatively low resolution. You may be pushing the camera when you upsample to 300dpi.

[changing]

Many compact cameras have three image settings - sometimes described as "best", "fine" and "normal".

Generally speaking, "normal" is OK for viewing on a computer monitor, "fine" is OK for prints up to about 7"x5", while "best" should be used for larger prints. Unfortunately, you can't change the quality after the exposure has been taken - it has to be set on the menu before shooting.