Teddy Bears and Critters - Australasia

What are Megapixels? Mega means 1 million, Pixels is a contraction of picture elements or more precisely, the dots that make up a digital image.

Many of those newer to digital photography often ask me what is DPI or PPI. Well in simple terms it's Dots Per Inch or Pixels Per Inch.

An image composed of 1 million pixels is approximaely the same size and resolution as the information displayed on a typical computer monitor. (Most computer screens have a resolution of 72 or 96 dpi (ppi) depending on whether you hav a Mac or a PC) However, to print a quality digital photo you need more than 1 megapixel.

Your digital camera has an image-resolution setting which tells the camera how many megapixels to assign to the image being taken. When taking photos which you intend to email to friends, you can choose the low, Web or email setting...this will give you great pictures on your computer screen and they are quick to send over the internet.

But when taking photos of you bears, you should use the camera's highest/maximum resolution and a tripod (more about the tripod later). This may not be the final resolution you use for the images, but for taking the photos in the first place, you need the largest amount of pixels. The greater the pixels, the more information is stored in your image and the easier it is to edit at a later date and produce a higher quality result - even if that final result has a reduced resolution.

This is my reason for asking for 72dpi (ppi) for screen use and 300dpi (ppi) for magazine printing.

I hope you all have a great time over the next few days taking your photos for the Black and White Ball and I look forward to seeing some beautiful images of your wonderful creations. Good Luck!