Need help with settings.

[Doghunter]

I just picked a digital camera A-60. Can I take shots with the setting at 1600x1200 (resoultion) and be able to send the shots as e-mail or should I set it at 640x480 as the manual says? I would like get quality pics so I can print some 4x6's but also want to e-mail the pics. This is my first digtal camera so I hope this isn't a stupid question. Thanks !

[Graybeard]

If you don't have a program to manipulate the size of your photos and to crop them you really aren't gonna be able to do both very well. I take all of mine at 1600x1200. For e-mails I reduce them to a width of 400 whether I crop them or not. Seems plenty big enough and doesn't take all day to up load or down load.

I use Adobe Photoshop and can recommend it. There are several other such programs folks use but if you are gonna work with your DC photos and send them and maybe print some you really need a good program to work with them.

GB

[Jack Crevalle]

GB is quite right. You want to take the pictures at the highest resolution that you can ( or can hold a sufficient number of pictures at ) and download them to your computer and manipulate them from there.

You can reduce the the complete scene or just crop out the part that is of interest. This way you have the high resolution image for prints or posterity plus you can send smaller images via email.

A very good freeware software package I use that can do this is Irfanview:

http://www.irfanview.com/

Be sure to get the plugins you need for any weird format.

Please ask all the questions you want.

[Bad Bob]

This camera shoots at 5.1 mp and will do most of that computer stuff right in the viewfinder of the camera .. This camera is a EVF, electronic view finder, and very few point shoot cameras have this.  It will enlarge, move, crop, rotate, change the megapixel count right in the viewfinder.  Won't change color but it does have a manual setting that I use all the time after I autofocus on a subject  and want to shoot at that distance.  Keeps the camera from focusing every time you want to compose.  Its much faster also.  I do send emails at the 1280X960 with no problem.  The 640X480 setting is only one third of one megapixel and some of them are amazing.  IMO.. THanks.

[Bad Bob]

This camera shoots at 5.1 mp and will do most of that computer stuff right in the viewfinder of the camera .. This camera is a EVF, electronic view finder, and very few point shoot cameras have this.  It will enlarge, move, crop, rotate, change the megapixel count right in the viewfinder.  Won't change color but it does have a manual setting that I use all the time after I autofocus on a subject  and want to shoot at that distance.  Keeps the camera from focusing every time you want to compose.  Its much faster also.  I do send emails at the 1280X960 with no problem.  The 640X480 setting is only one third of one megapixel and some of them are amazing.  IMO.. THanks.

[Billybob]

As the others said take your photos at the max resolution so you can print them later if needed. If you happen to have Windows XP and you just want to resize your pictures for sending thru email without having to use a photo editing program here is what you need.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

It's the file called image resizer. Just find the picture you want to resize and right click on the picture. A box will open and you select the option to resize image. Then you can select the small size for sending thru email. Super quick and easy to use.