By and large the makers of cameras have succeeded in convincing us all that for better pictures our cameras need more and more Mega Pixels. To a degree this is true but just how many Pixels do you really need?

In a recent competition (prompted by an inquiry from a customer) Fixerlabs, developers of the acclaimed SizeFixer software for digital photo enlargement, challenged visitors to their website to distinguish between four 6 MPixel images. The point here was that the four images were taken at the same time from the same point, but at four different quality settings using a top end camera. These settings were equivalent to a camera with 1MPixel, 2MP, 3MP and 6MP.

Analysis of the results shows that over 75% of people could correctly identify the photo which was taken at the 1MP setting, but virtually nobody could reliably distinguish between the photos taken at the 2,3 or 6MP setting. In this example the results indicate that software can clearly produce high quality results from as little as only 2MP.

The question we were actually asked by a keen amateur photographer was
«can I take pictures at the lower quality settings on my camera and use your software to effectively increase the image size back to the highest setting, saving time and disc space?»

This conclusion we reached is that beyond 2MP our software can produce the same results and this has important implications for anybody wishing to capture images quickly (as smaller image files get stored more quickly) or wanting to produce an enlargement from a compact camera or even a mobile phone camera.

To view the images used for the competition visit www.fixerlabs.com

And for further information on FixerLabs or the SizeFixer software contact Chris Bradley-Kidd.

Source: emediawire