Pixels

From About.com for your (and my) information.

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Digital Focus: All About Pixels and Resolution
Photo quality and jaggies, plus how many pixels is enough?

Dave Johnson
Feature: Digital Photo Basics--Pixels and Resolution

For years, digital camera makers have been chasing a fixed target: the quality of traditional photographs. Since digital cameras create pictures made from pixels--lots and lots of more-or-less square picture elements--the trick has been to reach a point where digital cameras can capture enough pixels to duplicate the effect of film. Are we there yet? Kind of.

One of the first questions new digital photographers often ask me is "What's the resolution of a 35mm picture in pixels?" Unfortunately, that's a really hard question to answer. Film is essentially thin plastic covered by a soup filled with millions of grains of silver halide. A 35mm picture doesn't have pixels. When you enlarge a film-based photo past its optimum size, you don't see square blocks like you do in digital photos: You see soft-edged, fuzzy grains.

The issue is further complicated by the fact that 35mm resolution varies dramatically based on the kind of film (for example, slides are sharper than prints), the ISO (the lower ISO rating, the smaller the grains), and even the lighting conditions and exposure (optimum lighting yields sharper pictures than badly exposed or long-exposure shots).

With all those variables, can the question even be answered? Sure, as long as you don't mind a big range of options. Typically, 35mm photography generates pictures that have the equivalent of between 6 megapixels and 20 megapixels. A megapixel, the standard by which digital cameras are sold, is a million pixels--so a 1280-by-960-pixel image is 1 megapixel.

So we're there! The bottom line is that many increasingly affordable digital cameras in the 5 or 6 megapixel range can give you essentially the same quality that you get with a point-and-shoot 35mm film camera loaded with 400 ISO print film.
How Many Pixels Do I Need?

That said, there's still a bigger question: What resolution do you need? The real question is this: What do you intend to do with the photo after you take it? If it's headed for e-mail, the Web, or a slide-show application, then you only need a megapixel or less. If you want to send the photo to your ink jet photo-quality printer, then you'll need about 200 or 250 pixels for every inch you want to print. An 8-by-10-inch print, then, should measure about 2000 by 2500 pixels. You can send a smaller image to the printer, but if you skimp on pixels you'll probably see jaggies in the final print.

Don't read those guidelines and think that I'm recommending you shoot your pictures in lower resolutions. Sure, your digital camera has a variety of resolution settings, but I suggest that you set your camera to its highest resolution and leave it there. Why? Because that way you can crop your photos and still have enough resolution for sharp-looking prints.

Think of your image editor as a sort of after-the-fact zoom lens. With megapixels to spare, you can inspect your photo on the PC and cut away the extraneous, the distracting, and the unneeded. You're left with a tight, impressive photo that you can print or process however you like. If you throttle down the camera's resolution to begin with, the image will have only enough pixels to print sharply if you don't do anything to the image. Cut away half the picture to eliminate a distracting object on one side of the scene, though, and now you'll have to "stretch" the image to print it at the same size. The result is that your image will look jagged, blocky, and blurry. Remember: In digital photography, more pixels are always better than less.
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Making

I've been making new things! I bought some wool sweaters from the thrift store and tried some mechanical resist techniques I learned in my surface resist class. The wool fulled well into felt except that some sweaters labeled 100% wool mysteriously retained all their knit texture. Misleadingly labeled fiber content anyone?









I came up with a series of scarves called Polyp in bib or collar style. I kind of sculpturally arrange them around my neck and secure with a felt button pin (a wool circle I turned into a biscuit - the backside of a yo yo). They're very warm and surprisingly soft and un-itchy.





These nest/pod pins I made with these weird plastic grassy parts are really exciting! I think the bright green and deep burgundy colors look amazing together and the contrasting textures are really fun.





I also made a whole bunch of cloth boxes to keep odds and ends in from vintage linen napkins, pillow cases, and old linen wall calendars. They've been perfect for corralling the stones and acorns I used as mechanical resists. I also like to keep one near my sewing machine as a small trash bin to keep my workspace tidy and keep thread and odds and ends off the floor.

Available now or soon in my etsy shop - Grandiflora. Check it out!