Print quality from digital cameras vs. film cameras

[chogan]

My wife and I are looking to purchase a new camera and are trying to figure out if we should go digital. It will be primarily for basic family and friends pics. One of our main concerns is print quality from a digital camera vs. a film camera. For the purpose of this topic let's assume we'd have a professional printshop (e.g. photoworks.com) actually print them.

Do prints from a digital camera look just as natural as a regular film camera or do they look pixelized?

Thanks for your help.

Chris

[gibsonpd3620]

Chris

I have an Olympus C4040, 4mp digital camera. I have a HP5550 for a printer which prints with 6 colors. I use Photoshop Pro ver 7.

The pictures I print are often confused for pics from a 35mm camera. The pictures are not 35mm camera quality but very close. Printers and cameras have advanced tremendously in just the last year. You can purchase printers and cameras that will come closer to 35mm. Canon is releasing a 20mp camera this year or it may have been Kodak. These cameras will exceed the 35mm quality level.

An important issue in printing digital pics is use good qulaity Photo paper. I use Kodak, HP or Epson paper and they work well with my printer.

[KeithB]

I have the Canon A40 and I've used my HP 940c printer with HP photo paper to get what I think are very good quality pictures that are just as good as the film pictures I had.

[graphius]

I am very fussy. I have not seen an inkjet print that looks truly photographic. and yes, I have looked at a lot of printers, from $100 to $15,000 commercial machines. for home use, a dye sub printer is not bad. but many photo shops have "real" printers that can output photos from digital media. I work with a Fuji Frontier, but there are other companies that make these machines. go to your local photo store to see if they have the capability.
then it just comes to resolution. you need at least 200 ppi (pixels per inch) for decent quality, 250 or better for fussy results.
that means for an 8x10 print you need 200x8x200x10=3.2 megapixels minimum. and more if you want to do any cropping, or use your "digital zoom"

[gibsonpd3620]

You can also take your pics from your digital camera and take them to Walmart, Walgreens and pics made from them. However, I am very pleased with pics I print on my HP printer.