What is "resolution" and how does it affect digital photo image quality?

What is "resolution" and how does it affect digital photo image quality?

Mark Comon (Vice President, Paul's Photo, Torrance, CA) gives expert video advice on: Can a digital camera capture high-quality video?; Can a cell phone capture high-quality stills?; Can a video camcorder capture high-quality digital stills? and more...

With digital camera picture quality, when you buy a digital camera you have to choose the number of megapixels. The megapixels is the size of the imaging chip, some people call that the resolution. What you need to know about megapixels is this, to make a 4x6 size print of photo quality you need 1 megapixel, to make a 5x7 print you need 2 megapixels, to make an 8x1 print you need 4 megapixels and that will give you true photo quality. So, when you're buying a digital camera what you get when you buy more megapixels is the ability to make larger enlargements and the ability to crop the picture, it's just that simple. Once again though, remember that lens quality is far more important to your overall picture quality than how many megapixels you have, as long as you make sure you are in the range of what you can do with your digital camera.