8/6     What picture resolution do you usually use for your digital camera
        and why? For sharing 1024x768 is more than sufficient, and I rarely
        go up to 2000x???? because I don't print posters
        \_ since i have a 1GB CF card, i take RAW pictures on my Canon, which
           is like 2276x1something. i send pix @ 800x600, which seems reasonable
          is like 2276x1something. i send pix @ 800x600, which seems reasonable
           enough.
        \_ I run my 21" desktop at 1280x1024 usually so never larger than that.
        \_ Always take picture at largest resolution, then shrink them down
           before sending to friends. You will thank yourself years down the
           road as your photo becomes more precious and display technology
           continues to improve.
           \_ Good point.  --21" monitor guy
           \_ Agreed.  For 99% of your images, it won't matter, but for those
              rare, spectacular images, you'll kick yourself if you're not
              able to blow them up because you were trying to save $80 on
              flash cards.  -tom
              \_ You need to improve your photography skill tom. :)
                 \_ You need to improve your critical eye.  -tom
                    \_ Tom, can we see some of your "rare, spectacular images"
                       \_ http://www.whitehouse.com
                       \_ This was a serious request.  I'd like to see some
                          of your pictures representing photographic quality,
                          not just "here is a picture of Grizzley Peak Road."
              \_ But, tom, do you still believe that using JPEG as a format
                 is the way to go instead of the camera's raw mode or TIFF?
                 \_ I think RAW has some advantages in the camera->computer
                    transfer, but it doesn't work as a long-term storage
                    format, because RAW is not a standard.  TIFF also has
                    standardization problems, and there isn't a preceptible
                    visual difference between uncompressed TIFF and top-quality
                    JPEG, so it's not worth the hassle and size of dealing with
                    TIFF.  -tom
                    \_ ever do complex photo manipulation?  JPG kills that.
                    JPEG's quantization produces numerous low bit differences
                       that just throws it all off.
                       \_ How do you define "complex photo manipulation"?
                          I certainly tweak my photos in Photoshop all the
                          time, and haven't noticed any problems.  -tom
                       \_ How about PNG instead of say TIFF or RAW?  lossless
                          compression format.  --Jon
                          \_ Maybe I am missing something, but for storage,
                             why not just zip the file? -- ilyas
        \_ I shoot all of my pictures in raw mode.  Why throw away data
           your camera gives you?  I also use multiple 512MB CF cards instead
           of one mondo 4GB card; I can back up each 512MB card to a cd and
           then process them later.  -meyers
           \_ Let's hope you can open those raw files in some app 20 years
              down the road. ;)
              \_ If I really wanted to, I could trivally convert them to
                 36MB tiff files.  When I switch to a photo editor that
                 doesn't support the RAW format of my camera, I might do
                 just that (and write my images to some higher capacity
                 medium).  -meyers
                 \-let's state the obvious: the resolution and mode of shooting
                   obviously depends on the circumstances. if i am shooting
                   something live, i will shoot digital on continuous.
                   because of buffering and sheer volume, this is not
                   reasonable to do at +50meg per image ... unless maybe
                   you do a short burst and edit on the spot. also in high
                   contrast situations, also you are probably going to come
                   away with a better picture by shooting 5 lower #bits
                   pix and braketing a lot. face it ... you are shooting
                   at a bbq or picnic, or at a backyard party or a touch
                   football game in the park ... dont shoot 5megapixel TIFF.
                   nobody will care about those picture that much.
                   same for shooting with a long zoom and no tripod or medium
                   quality lens [e.g. when i was shooting covertly at stern
                   grove with at 300mm of live action].
                   grove at 300mm of live action].
                   on the other hand, you wake up before dawn and hike
                   to a spot in Yosemite Valley to shoot the early morning
                   light hitting the Wall of Early Morning Light on El Cap,
                   consider shooting at your best, lossless format ...
                   link:csua.org/u/8i1 i suppose you ought to look up
                   one of the web pages that advises how many pixels you
                   ought to aim for to print at various sizes, for those
                   rare pictures that will hit paper. n.b. i dont  do heavy
                   digital modification. if you do, YMMV. --psb
        \_ I shoot fine jpg (3072x2048, 180 dpi) on my digital rebel. I
           find that this gives me the best results to work with when
           trying to crop/scale the image down to 1680x1050 (my 20"
           cinema display's native resolution).
        \_ I save my canon photo's in both raw format and hi-res jpeg.
           storage mediums are cheap nowadays.