Gene, I was thinking of purchasing a digital camera - what number of Pixels are required to shoot photos of sufficient quality for publication in a print magazine? Or is this still a pipe dream?
“Poor is the pupil who
does not surpass his
master” - Leonardo Da
Vinci
TTT
“Poor is the pupil who
does not surpass his
master” - Leonardo Da
Vinci
3+ megapixels
As I understand it, 3+ megapixels is capable of “photo” realism when printed. I suggest you look at Consumer Reports or check out this link…
Good luck.
Merciless is Mercy.
TTT
Thanks, that was good info.
But back to Gene - the magazine - does it take digital photos? How many pixels is the minimum?
“Poor is the pupil who
does not surpass his
master” - Leonardo Da
Vinci
digital photos
Digital photos must be 300 dpi minimum for print in our magazine. This is pretty standard for most martial arts magazines, although something higher res is useful for a lead shot. Every magazine is different and once you step outside the martial realm, the requirements can be much higher (or lower.) We here at Kungfu Qigong love digital - in fact our printing process is completely digital now.
Gene Ching
Asst. Publisher
Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com
Should I be afraid 
Gene
If you don’t mind me asking, what software (Quark vs. Indesign vs. Pagemaker, etc.) do you do your layout in, and what do you do your photo work in?
-rtb
Hi.
300dpi as Gene states is the resolution required fior printing dpi=dots per inch. In didital photography your resolution is dependent upon the size of the picture itself in pixels, the resolution can be varied from this point.
while 300dpi is the minimum for print 600-800 dpi is the optimum that will produce a quality crisp graphic each time. In digital camera term if you have a camera that can achieve 1200x600 images then you are outputting at a print size relative to 4inch x6 inch which becomes in turn 720dpi for print. so any camera that can output at 2+ megapixels will consistenly give you images that are more tahn adequate for printing when rendered for print.
however, to achieve the minimum 300 dpi for print a 1.4 megapixel camera will meet the minimum standard.
hope this helps.
also, when you take your images off the flash card or drive and bring them into an editing tool such as photoshop, be sure to define your print parametres in your editing tool. Because the default settings for editing tools are generally for the production of web graphics which suffice at 72 - 96 ppi (pixels per inch).
peace
Kung Lek
rubthebuddha
We do our layout in pagemaker and graphics in photoshop. Input comes from all sorts of weird sources as you might imagine. Most MA writers tend not to ask these very important questions beforehand and our graphics department often has to do a lot of clean up. Even our ads submissions can be pretty sketchy.
Gene Ching
Asst. Publisher
Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com
Gene
i was editor for my university’s newspaper (all positions, including chief), designer for our magazine and the designer for the english departments annual publication, so i know about getting everything from nice MS-Word files to handwritten submissions on note cards to (my personal favorite) people who scanned in their submission from notebook paper because i said i needed it in file format. :mad:
meehhh-moooo-ries, mehhh-mooo-ries …
-rtb
oh, and i can’t forget
must never forget the people who were assigned pictures for a function who, on production night, came by and turned in their disposable camera that they hadn’t even developed yet. now that’s the kinda stuff that tests one’s powers of relaxation. :mad:
-rtb
disposable camera!
That’s hilarious. Haven’t had that one yet. At least you GOT sopme pics…
Nowadays, digital has been a real blessing. People can just email or FTP it to us. It’s awesome.
Gene Ching
Asst. Publisher
Kungfu Qigong Magazine & www.KUNGFUmagazine.com
then i’ll cross my fingers and rubmybuddha that it never happens to you. when all the one-hour developers have closed for the evening and all your fingers want to do is wrap themselves around your photographer’s neck, it’s time to take a break. a long one. 
-rtb