The Digital Photography Companion



PROTECT IMAGES COMMAND

72

Protect Images Command

e Erase All command removes all images from your memory card. It’s a handy way to

clean house without having to remove each picture individually. What if, however, you

wanted to remove all pictures except for one or two? e Protect Images option can

help you do just that.

Display the first picture you want to retain on the LCD monitor, and then choose Pro-

tect Images from the menu. An icon (such as a key) should appear on the monitor, to

indicate that the picture is safe. Repeat for any other images you want to keep, and then

use the Erase All command to delete the unprotected images.

Be sure to practice this on test pictures to make sure everything works properly, or try

it after you’ve already downloaded all the pictures you want to keep to your computer.

Also, remember that Protect Images doesn’t work when you use the Format Card com-

mand. With this command, all of your images will be erased, regardless of whether they

are protected.

Raw

See File Formats (Still Images) earlier in this chapter. (See also Work with Raw Files in

Chapter 4.)

Resolution

By far one of the most important settings on your camera, resolution sets the pixel

dimensions of your picture, thereby determining the size at which the picture can be

displayed or printed later on. Most cameras allow you to set the resolution of the pic-

ture via the menu options.

If, for example, you select your camera’s smallest pixel dimensions—say, 640×480—your

picture will be adequate for web page display. But if you wanted to make a photo-qual-

ity print of that picture, you would have enough resolution for only a 3×4-inch print at

best.

On the other hand, if you select your camera’s maximum resolution, such as 2560×1920

pixels (on a 5-megapixel camera), you’ll be able to make an 8×10-inch photo-quality

print, or even a good 11×14-inch print, from the same picture. (See the table titled

Exposure starting points for sunset and astrophotography* in the Appendix for more

details.)

e trade-off is that the higher the resolution is, the more room each picture occupies

on your memory card. So, if you have a 5-megapixel camera with a 1 GB memory card,

you’ll be able to squeeze 461 pictures onto the card when the camera is set to its highest