Pixel is an abbreviation for Picture Element. A pixel is a tiny coloured element that helps form part of the picture taken on a digital camera. Imagine the digital camera picture is like a mosaic which contains millions of tiles. Although a digital camera photo looks smooth like a regular photograph, it is made up of millions of pixels.
Megapixel is a measurement of the resolution of the picture. 'Mega' means million. So if you buy a five megapixel digital camera it means the camera takes pictures with five million pixels.
More pixels means larger images. Reducing the size of the image does not affect its quality. Instead it will simply shrink the size of each pixel. However increasing the size of the image, above the standard size of each pixel will affect the quality. This is because you're stretching each pixel.
Megapixels : Picture Size
| Megapixels |
Pixel Resolution |
Print Size @ 300ppi |
Print size @ 200ppi |
| 3 |
2048 x 1536 |
6.82" x 5.12" |
10.24" x 7.68" |
| 4 |
2464 x 1632 |
8.21" x 5.44" |
12.32" x 8.16" |
| 6 |
3008 x 2000 |
10.02" x 6.67" |
15.04" x 10.00" |
| 8 |
3264 x 2448 |
10.88" x 8.16" |
16.32" x 12.24" |
| 10 |
3872 x 2592 |
12.91" x 8.64" |
19.36" x 12.96" |
| 12 |
4290 x 2800 |
14.30" x 9.34" |
21.45" x 14.00" |
| 16 |
4920 x 3264 |
16.40" x 10.88" |
24.60" x 16.32" |
Remember that the images with a large number of pixels will take up more space on the memory card. Reducing the number of pixels per picture allows you to store more images.