URGENT - Camera Megapixels and File Size

BungleGirl

I need to get a photo of myself emailed out today and it states that it must be 1Mb minimum.

On the highest resolution when I download the pictures to my computer they are approx. 450kb so I am trying to find a friend with a better camera than mine!

Does the number of megapixels a camera is capable of relate to the file size that the photos would be? If so does anyone how many megapixels would produce a 1Mb picture file?

Thank you so much to anyone that can help - I'm in total panic mode at the moment!

Sophie

espresso

A 2M pixel camera produces files sizes of approx 1MB. Are you sure that it must be 1MB minimum?

BungleGirl

Yes - it states that it must be 1Mb minimum - it is to be used on a colour leaflet that will be printed. My camera must be really rubbish but I have a friend who says she has a 6.1 megapixel camera - it sounds as though that should be fine - thankfully!

Thank you so much for replying!

Sophie

Badger_Lady

It sounds above like you're getting confused between megapixels and megabytes - they're not the same thing.

It would be unusual for them to ask for a minimum filesize - I expect they're actually looking for "minimum 1 megapixel". Am I right?

BungleGirl

Badger_Lady wrote: »

It sounds above like you're getting confused between megapixels and megabytes - they're not the same thing.

It would be unusual for them to ask for a minimum filesize - I expect they're actually looking for "minimum 1 megapixel". Am I right?

You could be right - I have no idea about digital photography - the is what it states i the email I was sent:-

'jpg format prefered Highest resolution 1MB'

On my camera if I go to 'Quality' I have four options 4M 2M 1M and 0.3M so thought that 4M would do the job but when it was downloaded onto my computer it was 450kb. The email I received states 1MB so I assumed that it was file size.

Sophie

espresso

BungleGirl wrote: »

On my camera if I go to 'Quality' I have four options 4M 2M 1M and 0.3M so thought that 4M would do the job but when it was downloaded onto my computer it was 450kb. The email I received states 1MB so I assumed that it was file size.

Sophie

Which camera?

Are you sure that the picture is not getting re-sized to a smaller size when you attach it to your e-mail? Look at the file using Explorer.

meester

BungleGirl wrote: »

You could be right - I have no idea about digital photography - the is what it states i the email I was sent:-

'jpg format prefered Highest resolution 1MB'

On my camera if I go to 'Quality' I have four options 4M 2M 1M and 0.3M so thought that 4M would do the job but when it was downloaded onto my computer it was 450kb. The email I received states 1MB so I assumed that it was file size.

Sophie

highest means MAXIMUM.

I.e. not bigger than 1mb......

So that 4MP picture at 450kb is fine.

BTW, file size is broadly correlated to megapixels, in that a 4 megapixel photo takes 4 MB * 3 (because it's three bytes per pixel to describe the 24 million colours) = 12MB. However, jpeg photos are compressed, and depending on the level of compression (higher means lower quality, but you won't notice until the compression is very high), you will get different file sizes. File sizes vary substantially between subjects, even at the same number of megapixels and camera - a picture of a white sheet contains more redundancy than a picture of a colourful scene, so the white sheet would have a much smaller file size.

There is usally an option, in addition to the megapixel (resolution), to set the compression, often described as something like 'medium', 'fine', and 'superfine'.

BungleGirl

Okay I have just received clarification!

'It should be JPG high or maximum quality. file size 1MB or more.'

So I read this one as that it is minimum 1MB - I think they are trying to send me mad!

I think from the replies I can probably get a 1MB .jpg out of my friends 6.1 megapixel camera.

Thank you for all your replies - my friend is coming with her camera at 10.30am so should know if it is all okay shortly.

Sophie

espresso

It sounds like you have a 4M pixel camera already!

BungleGirl

My camera is a fuji finepix a405 - I must be doing something wrong!

This is what I did:-

Downloaded them to computer - this done via finepix viewer, deleted them from camera when downloaded (have a horrible feeling that might have been a bad move!)

In finepix viewer if I go to check file size (using one photo as an example) it says Size 445KB (445,682 bytes) Size on Disk 448KB (458,752 bytes) this is the same if I change what it 'opens with' to internet explorer.

espresso

BungleGirl wrote: »

My camera is a fuji finepix a405 - I must be doing something wrong!

This is what I did:-

Downloaded them to computer - this done via finepix viewer, deleted them from camera when downloaded (have a horrible feeling that might have been a bad move!)

In finepix viewer if I go to check file size (using one photo as an example) it says Size 445KB (445,682 bytes) Size on Disk 448KB (458,752 bytes) this is the same if I change what it 'opens with' to internet explorer.

Fuji finepix a405 is a 2M pixel camera. It should produce a picture with 1200 x 1600 pixels when on the correct settings (filesize approx 1MB). It sounds like you took these pictures on a lower setting if they are only 458KB filesize.