How many mega pixels do I need for printing? Not so many. I took a well exposed shot from the K1 and D-FA28-105, converted to JPEG and cropped to equate: 125dpi, 150dpi, 165dpi and 180dpi, with and without sharping on top of standard sharpening, printed 7 images 8"x12". Then viewing the prints at about 10" distance. The comparison reveals that what we read online is mostly wrong.
- The right amount of sharpening make the 125dpi print look better than the 180 dpi print sharpened.
- At 10" viewing distance, 150 dpi (that's only about 2Mpixels) and up all look good with optimal sharpening.
- At arm length viewing distance it is impossible to see a difference between 125 dpi (1.5Mp) sharpened and 180 dpi (3Mp).
- Since 3Mp is already plenty good, 8Mp should be excellent, optimal sharpening (unsharp mask) is the thing that play a primary goal in how the print looks.
- Lens aberration is the most visible and it's more visible with lower dpi => lens quality, format (less aberrations relative to enlargement) are more important that pixel count.
Conclusion: The mega pixel count is secondary for printing, but the lens and optimal post processing is critical. Sufficient dynamic range is get the most out of image post processing.
Last edited by biz-engineer; 03-27-2019 at 09:21 AM.