Digital Scrapbooking For Beginners – What is Image Resolution?

Ever been disappointed by a tiny printed image after editing a picture from your digital camera? Ever wondered why your mother’s e-mail in-box rejects the photos of your family ?

If you are just getting started with digital scrapbooking, then this elementary lesson is for you. It is simpler than you might guess.

Pixels and Resolution
A pixel is the name of the tiny dots that make up an image. The word “pixel” is a contraction of the words “picture” (or “pix”) and “element” and generally is the smallest part of any type of digitally represented image. People are easily confused because the word pixel assumes subtle differences in meaning depending on the context in which it is used such as in printed images or the megapixels in a digital camera.

To simplify this discussion, just think of a pixel as a tiny point of light or color representing a very small component of a much larger image.

People also talk about resolution when referring to pixels. Resolution is a measurement of how many pixels fit into a certain defined space. You may have heard of “dots per inch” (DPI) or “pixels per inch” (PPI) and the meaning of these two terms adds to the confusion because once again it depends on the context in which the term is used.


Let’s simplify once again by saying that image resolution is an expression of how much detail an image holds.

Our TVs, computer screens, cell phones, and even digital photographs are full of pixels – thousands and thousands of them all crowded together so closely it fools the human brain into thinking it is a smooth, unbroken photograph. These digital images appear just about anywhere we look in our technology filled world, from our PDAs to our car dashboard to the giant electronic billboards on display along the highway or in New York’s Times Square.
The more pixels inside an image, the smoother the photograph looks.
On the other hand, if the pixel count is too low, the image quality degrades. So you may be able to distinguish the individual dots in a microwave display but a printed digital photo looks as smooth as glass. A pixelated image results when the pixel count is so low, you can see the jagged edges.
Digital cameras have made sharing photos easier than ever. No longer do you have to get film developed and multiple copies printed. Today, many people share their photos through email and social network sites. However, before doing this the image taken from the digital camera is usually downsized.

Digital cameras are built to duplicate film camera quality and therefore capture images with a huge pixel resolution. Compare that to most home computer displays that have a low pixel count, usually under 100 pixels in an inch. Displaying high resolution images on a low resolution device results in an image that appears much bigger on the computer screen.
Digital cameras capture images at high resolution to facilitate photographic quality prints. But e-mailing this large image file will use megabytes of data and many e-mail users will refuse it.
Image Resampling
The solution is to resample the image which is geek speak for changing the resolution. Decreasing the number of pixels makes the image appear normal on a computer screen. And this will allow you to e-mail Mom with the newest family photos from your latest vacation. But after changing the resolution of the image, don’t be expecting to get a quality photo anymore since you’ve taken out so many pixels.

So here is the fundamental point to remember. Images intended for printing need to be at a high resolution while images displayed on a computer screen need only a low resolution.
If you choose to do both printing and sharing of your photos, make a copy of your original digital image for playing around with. In addition to preparing for both printing and viewing images correctly, this is also a highly recommended backup plan for all of your digital photos.
Now that you know how pixel count affects digital images, you will enjoy complete success in printing and viewing any image you grab with your digital camera.