It's always good to know what size you want to print your pictures in, so you can just shoot at that resolution instead of the highest. Contrary to popular belief, shooting at a lower megapixel setting does not compromise the picture quality. You would just get an image with reduced pixel dimensions and smaller file sizes. That said, you can take more pictures, which is an advantage if you are using a smaller-capacity flash memory.
So unless you are thinking of making poster-sized prints for all the pictures you take, we will show you the maximum print sizes for various megapixel settings.
| Camera resolution (megapixels) | Pixels dimension | Maximum print size (in inches) |
| VGA | 640 x 480 | 2 x 1.5 |
| 2 | 1,633 x 1,225 | 4 x 6 (4R) |
| 3 | 2,048 x 1,536 | 5 x 7 (5R) |
| 4 | 2,464 x 1,632 | 6 x 8 (6R) |
| 5 | 2,592 x 1,944 | 6 x 9 |
| 6 | 3,008 x 2,000 | 6.5 x 10 |
| 7 | 3,072 x2,304 | 7.5 x 10 |
| 8 | 3,264 x 2,448 | 8 x 10 (8R or A4) |
| 9 | 3,464 x 2,598 | 8 x 12 (Super 8R) |
| 10 | 3,651 x 2,739 | 8.5 x 13 |
| 11 | 3,830 x 2,872 | 9 x 13.5 |
| 12 | 4,000 x 3,000 | 9 x 14 |
At different resolutions, some cameras may offer the option to choose different image quality. Select the best if you want to get good prints.
The maximum print size stated is at best print settings. If you try to resize a 4-megapixel image to print at 8R, the print quality will be much lower.
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