Interpolated or not?

mentos_007 · Mar 13, 2005

Hi! As you know I'm using my fuji s5000 mostly and I used to shoot with 3 mega pixel resolution. But it also has an option of 6 MP but interpolated. I know what does it mean and how the image is then created but is it worth? I mean is there a huge difference between this 3 mp not interpolated and 6mp? I tried and I see no difference in prints of the size 4"x6" so I dunno now...

Artemis · Mar 13, 2005

Interpolation is where the program makes extra pixels by copying the original pixels and placing them either side....this way you can interpolate so much as to make a 3 megapixel image to blow up to the size of a wall.

Andy rouse's "Digital SLR master class" has a section on it...worth a read.

walter23 · Mar 13, 2005

The reason you might use interpolation would be to remove the appearance of jagged edges on things (due to pixels becoming physically too large) if you print at large enough sizes. It doesn't harm your images to use it and might be slightly better than photoshop, since in the camera is gets done before JPEG compression, which reduces quality, so the interpolation can be a bit more accurate. On the other hand, you can only fit half as many images on a memory card than you would be able to at 3MP resolution.

I'd use it if you plan to print at really large sizes, like greater than 8x10, or if you don't mind being able to fit less images on a card. Anything up to 8x10 size and you're probably just wasting memory card space.