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Beyond Megapixels - Part III
TheTechLounge writes "Beyond Megapixels - Part I & Part II have both been posted here at Slashdot, and now it is my pleasure to bring to you Beyond Megapixels - Part III. This is the final part of this series of editorial articles examining current digital photography hardware. In this segment I will be focusing on function, filetypes, and features."
...purchases in the last few months and I have to say that the "megapixel race" is becoming like the megahertz race in that many people use that feature alone as their determining factor. Rarely do they want to discuss optical versus digital zoom (something that Kodak is addressing with their DX6490, a 10X OPTICAL zoom in an inexpensive, well-built camera), output format, etc.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
But the article adressed issues such as white balance, which often is of central importance, even with a 2.1 megapixel camera (unless you are shooting black&white).
horses for courses. Glad to hear you camera is all you need. :) (if we had ants that made mounds in NZ!!)
But you may not be as happy to see that quality picture on a sports illustrated double spread for instance.
People still use film because there is still an issue with the merits of film/CCD/CMOS. Until film is well and truely surpassed by digital, expect to see the megapixels get.. uhhh . mega'rer.
I've recently got into SLR digital with a 10D. Along with that I got some 'L' series lenses, and I would expect my picture quality will steadily improve as the pixels go up. I'm looking forward to it.
What? Do you enjoy being able to clearly see an ant from taking a picture with your camera 12 feet above an ant mound?
Actually..... yes...
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
Have you ever tried printing those 2 megapixel images? 2.0 may be all well and good on a monitor, but printing is a whole 'nother ballgame. You won't be getting any kind of acceptable 8x10's out of that. And we're not even talking professional use here, just simple at home printing, when you start talking about actually selling your images or doing other serious work with them, the need for 5+ megapixels becomes painfully clear.
So yes, 2.0 is enough if all you're doing is posting the images online or archiving them for the heck of it, but when it comes to really putting them to work, whether it be printing just for at home framing or for professional work, you'll quickly see the need for those "hyped" high megapixels.
I've got a Fuji A201 2 mp camera. The images are crappy, mainly due to a tiny lens and cheap components.
My main camera is a 3^H6 mp Fuji S602Zoom with a big lens, a threaded ring, manual control of everything, a 1cm macro mode, and raw (well, tiff) image output.
I think that while the average point-and-shoot person will not need more than 2 mp, they probably will want a smallish optical zoom and reasonable lens quality.
I would benefit from my camera taking true 6mp shots (Fuji's hexagonal multi-sensor-per-pixel idea. actually 3 mp images in a diagonal hex layout interpolated to 6. I normally run it on 3. I'd say its equivalent to about 4.5 up to about 6 for straight edges (buildings))
I'm a hobbist photographer, and I often print images on A4 if they're good. A4 really needs about 4 mp so as to not see pixels (5760x1440 dpi printer)
So, yes, i want more megapixels.
as with anything digital, the more data/info you can capture, the more you can do with it afterwards. Ramp up the megapixels, sample rate, clock rate, and so on.
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For the RTFA-ers:
Beyond Megapixels
Beyond Megapixels - Part II
Linux users can use the dcraw util to convert RAW into TIFF format. It also has a plugin for GIMP which works fine. On my camera though, the RAW files are 6.3Mb, and the TIFFs created with dcraw are 18Mb.
:)
Have a look at my pics, too.
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I remember watching a review of digital cameras on a gadget show a year or so ago. The reviewer pointed out that the key to the image was the lens, if that is bad, then nothing else matters.
Don't talk pixels, talk optics.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
I have a C-3000 that does exactly that. Interchangeable lenses, filters, whatever. Just like a regular film SLR. Reasonable price, too.
It's much, much more than just the megapixels that determines how your shots will come out. The megapixels are just the limiting factor on what you can do with the photo afterwards.
Let's take a 2 megapixel image for instance. 1600x1200 = 1,920,000 pixels. An 8 inch x 10 inch print of that photo would print at a resolution of 1600/10=160 ppi (dpi) across, and 1200/8=150 ppi (dpi) down. That is low quality, approximately half of what you see in a typical magazine, and is definitely noticable.
Beyond that, I was recently at my cousin's graduation and commissioning into the army. His family brought their $250-$300 3 megapixel camera and I had my 5 megapixel Sony DSC-F717. The difference is astounding, and the megapixels have only minor significance. Because the basics of photography are not even addressed on their camera (color balance, focal length, exposure time, etc) their images in the darkened ceremony did not come out at all, whereas mine came out great as I adjusted the shutter speed, the exposure values and other settings that they had absolutely no control over.
For point & shoot, put on the web or e-mail, no, it doesn't really matter, but a good camera at 640x480 compared to el 'cheapo camera at the same resolution is quite significant.
I think the general sentiment of this article is very true. I remember when I bought my first digital camera, it was a case of the biggest number of pixels winning. In those days 1.0MP cameras were pretty expensive, and I remember being overjoyed that I managed to get a great deal on a Kodak that reached this "magic figure" producing 1152x864 images - rather than most of the other cameras within my price bracket at the time which were between 640x480 and 1024x768.
Skip forward to last month, and I bought my third digital camera. There were 3MP, 4MP and 5MP models within my price range, but in the end, I settled for a 4MP model with a great lens, full manual control and some nifty other features (a Canon Powershot A80, I'd recommend this model to anyone after a fortnight of snapping with it). It produces 2272x1704 images, quite a lot bigger than I'm ever likely to need.
I'd LOVE a digitam cam like that,...
Digital SLRs are available starting at US$899 (list) for the Canon Digital Rebel/300D/Kiss Digital (the name varies by region).
Visit here to learn more.
SteveM
Well, you do need a certain minimum of megapixels, so you can have your photo printed. See, I never print photos on my PC (which is why I don't need an inkjet* with highly expensive ink (1 liter = 1 kg Gold)), but bring or send them to the photoshop instead.
They will print it using a seriously good printer on great paper, and charge a pittance for it. Some shops (and websites) also allow me to design a nice hardcover book full of my photos and text, which makes a great present for friends and family.
But the requirement-limit is at, what, between 3 and 5 megapixels. Using more is useful for cutting images and having only a small part printed, but this happens rather rarely.
Instead I want the following:
* a good optical lens (come on, an f of 2.8 is not that great, unless you live in a really sunny country) with a solid optical zoom (who CARES about digital zoom?).
* Use standard AA rechargable batteries - they are cheap, hold a heck of a charge by now, and are easily replacable - with plain batteries if necessary.
Keep in mind that these things have to be replaced every now and then, and a propriatary one isn't cheap.
* Use CF cards. Cheap, fast, big, and under steady development.
* Allow me to access the camera via USB as an external drive, without needing some kind of stupid program.
* Reasonably small, so I will usually carry it with me in my pocket instead of leaving it at home due to bulk/weight.
Currently, I use the Canon A70/A75/A80. I can recommend them all, except for the lens (2.8, but this currently is standard, except for the great Olympus 5050 with 1.8), and the interface (I have to pop out the CF to read it - I'm not using some kiddy-aimed windows program here).
Not too expensive, either (nope, I have no connection to the manufacturer).
Ciao,
Klaus
* Tip: Buy a used postscripting laserprinter with >= 600 dpi. Dirt cheap, toner lasts forever, you'll love it. And no drivers needed, ever.
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
Since I haven't read them, and I don't see them posted here anywhere, here are the links to the first two stories:
y =beyond_megapixels_part_1
y =beyond_megapixels_part_2
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article.php?director
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article.php?director
Ah yes, I can feel the Slashdotting coming on now =)
NOT. The Canon EOS D300/Digital Rebel which is compatible with almost all EF series lenses, and has its own line of EF-S lenses can be had for only ~$950 bundled with a great 18-55 EF-S autofocus lense. Of course once you've caught the bug you can easily spend thousands on new lenses but the barrier to entry in the DSLR world has come crashing down with several competitors offering similarly priced models (though AFAIK none of them have as good of a lense on their ~$1K DSLR's)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I am what you would consider a serious amatuer photographer. (Note that's not seriously amatuer.) I like taking nice photos and blowing them up/enlarging the best of them to frame and hang on the wall. I've even had one professional gig where I got paid for taking official photos at a wedding. A few extra bucks for me and some decent photos at a cheap price for the couple.
Here is my perfect camera:
1. Six Megapixel. You can print out an 8X10" photo at the same quality as 35mm film. More is better, but does an amatuer really need any more than that?
2. An SLR. This is a single lens reflex. It focuses the image onto the focusing screens by using the light coming through the lens (what you see through the view-finder is what you get) and has interchangable lenses.
3. Has a nice optical zoom. How many X makes a nice optical zoom? I suppose that's up to the individual, but I think 10X or more. More is always better when it comes to optical zoom.
The Canon Digital Rebel seems to be the perfect camera for me. The price is still a bit out there, in the neighborhood of $1000, but I'm sure it will come down as time goes on. I'm thinking we are nearing the end of the major advances in digital cameras. Not that we can't improve them, but they are practically at the quality/price levels of film cameras. You can get a cheapie for less than $100 that takes "okay" 3 megapixel images. Great for 4x6 snapshots. You can also spend about $1000 for everything a non-professional could want. Any improvements beyond this are gravy and probably wouldn't profit the researcher or manufacturer much.
Oh! And ignore digital zoom. I wish it didn't exist. I can enlarge it on my computer after the fact and get the same effect.
But why is the rum gone?
Have you ever tried printing those 2 megapixel images? 2.0 may be all well and good on a monitor, but printing is a whole 'nother ballgame. You won't be getting any kind of acceptable 8x10's out of that.
I've had full page shots from my 2MP Powershot A60 printed in real, live magazines. They work FINE for 8x10 or 8.5x11 for that matter.
The parent poster is correct. 2MP is more than enough for most people. I never recommend more than 3.2 - 4MP for most anyone who solicits my opinion. Unless someone is looking for room to crop an image, anything more is usually a waste of flash memory.
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You mean sloshing chemicals around in a closed tank? I didn't find that very interesting :-) Making prints was a different ballgame though.
If you want the ultimate B&W print, I don't think you can beat all-chemical process.
But making color prints was a real pain in the butt. I did prints from color negatives and Ilfochromes from slides, but most of the time I ran out of patience before getting everything just right. Sending the images over the net to a printing service, where they are printed straight onto photographic paper, and sent to me via the post, is so much easier and produces so good results that I don't want to go back to the color chemicals ever again.
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
I think it's like most things in the computer world. Megapixels are numbers which can easily be compared with each other, whereas you can't just easily state that camera A has a better picture quality than camera B. Partially, maybe, because it's a matter of taste, but mainly because the picture quality can't be measured in a number that can be put on the label that also tells the customer how expensive the cam is.
And well, as some people say, higher resolutions can be useful when you want large prints of the pictures.
Displays have approximately 100 DPI (dots per inch) of resolution. Printing on a cheapie inkjet has 300 DPI. Printing on a high-quality but still consumer-level laser printer tops out around 1200 DPI. Each time you double the DPI, you need 4 times as many pixels to attain it.
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But you may not be as happy to see that quality picture on a sports illustrated double spread for instance.
Sports Illustrated accepts pictures from the Canon 1D (4MP) and the Nikon D1H (2.6MP). Nowadays its staff photographes are mostly using the Canon 1D-II (8MP).
But, the truth is, number of MP doesn't matter. What matters is the size of the photosites on the sensor. A digicam has little photosites 2x2 microns. To get a picture, you need high amplification, so you get noise in the shadows. You've got a cheap lens, so you get chromatic abberation in the highlights. On top of that, you get low overall contrast. A DSLR on the other hand has photosites 7x7 microns or 9x9 microns. No noise in the shadows at "low" ISOs (which are still higher than most digicams), no abberation in the highlights from those nice lenses, faithful colours overall.
I've recently got into SLR digital with a 10D. Along with that I got some 'L' series lenses
I've a D30 with L glass. It's simply not worth me ugrading to a 10D - the photos I get from my 3MP look beautiful printed at 12x8" (using Photoshop to interpolate as necessary). The way the human visual system works, contrast and faithful colour matters more than resolution. All the lamers who bought the Sony F828 have no idea what a mistake that was, they just want more megapixels to boast about - that 2.6MP Nikon completely blows it away.
Firstly, there are no good LCD viewfinders...especially when we're talking about still frame quality of any kind. Secondly, there is no need for an SLR mechanism on a digital LCD viewfinder, since the picture is being fed from the imaging CCD anyways. Cameras such as the Canon D300, 10D or any other digital SLR don't use LCD viewfinders, because that's not what their customers really want or need...and it would defeat the purpose anyway.
:) More or less, I can do more serious amateur photography without spending my entire livelihood on film/development/printing, which allows me to take many, many more pictures.
When I was in the camera market, I was going for either the Digital Rebel or the gigantic Sony 8MP thing...and eventually settled on the rebel. (Okay, its was the EF Lens capability that won me over). I find that being able to make image adjustments is a lot easier when I'm looking at exactly what will be photographed, instead of some downsized representation. That, and I take good pictures from anywhere in the ballpark with an additional zoom lens.
Granted, this works because I bought my camera to be a camera...not some kind of camcorder...which is one feature most LCD viewfinder cameras offer.
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Three MP, or something like 3.2, is now below $300, more like $250.
The mid-range models are now at four -- that's the current standard, more-or-less, for solid point-and-shooters.
Personally I know from experience that if you're going to want to make enlargements, you want something like four at least. Three will be okay, but there's some degradation of the image, especially if you're going up to 8x10. That's not a microscope, it's just a picture for your desk at work. A 2 MP camera is going to be painful at that size.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I found this series to be a pretty big let down. I guess I was expecting too much, but I was hoping the author would go down the list of where digital doesn't live up to film as a call to action for camera makers and consumers. But no, the series for the most part just talks about existing digital camera features like autofocus and zoom lenses. Oh well.
I want to see some serious discussion about things like color gamut. The gamut of film (especially slide film) is much better than that of digital cameras. Is anyone working to improve the situation for digicams? There's a interesting looking article at extreme tech that talks about gamuts here.
Basically current sRGB devices don't cover the full range of colors which the human visual system can percieve (nor does film, but film comes closer than digital). Think of deep violet for instance. You simply can't get those hues on a monitor, and so today's digital cameras just don't record those colors. However, it is likely that some day we will have monitors and hardcopy ouptut devices that perform as well as the human visual system. So ideally the pictures I take today would have the full range of color information, even if they're forced to display only a subset of those colors on current display devices. That way, in the future when "uberdisplays" are available, my pictures from 2000 will still look nice, and not washed out and cheesy like color photographs from the 60's do today.
If you widen the gamut of CCDs, you'll probably want to add a few bits to each color channel as well -- use 12 bit color instead of 8 bit for instance.
And as long as you're adding bits, the other thing it seems like digital cameras could possibly offer some day is point-and-click high dynamic range (HDR) images, say in EXR format. Couldn't one build CDD sensors with automatic gain control (ISO) on a per-pixel basis, and then assemble the results into a HDR image? Currently the way to make HDR images is by taking several photos of the same scene and carefully merging them together, but that's pretty cumbersome.
With HDR images, you have much more flexibility to adjust the exposure and reveal detail in the shadows after taking the image.
What other cool things could digital cameras offer that would take us beyond simply replacing film cameras?
Pretty easy. Printers work differently.
On my screen I have 1280x1024 pixels. Every pixel is formed from 3 elements: red, green and blue, but they're small enough so that a yellow pixel appears really yellow to me.
Now, printers print using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black. Most cheap printers can't mix colors, which means they have to combine them by dithering. And to make matters even worse, they can't control the intensity. If you have a color printer, try printing colored text. Often it looks pretty ugly.
This means that in order to print my screen on paper and have it look identical, my printer has to either have a much higher resolution so that dithering isn't visible, or mix colors.
If you print your photo on a inkjet without scaling, you'll lose detail due to dithering. If you make it bigger, and print it on a really good printer, then it'll come out pixelated. Jagged lines on a printer are much easier to see, probably because on a screen the pixels glow and to some extend mix with the nearby ones, and on a good printer they won't.
Sigh. Zoomfactor is just as much a non-informative factor as megapixels.
10x what? 28mm (equiv)? 35mm? 38?
That's quite a difference. And the wide angle is more important than the zoomfactor anyway, in 9 out of 10 cases.
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And then dumping the silver nitrate and the rest of the witches' brew down the sink when you're done? No thanks. I'll keep the rivers around here clean, if its all the same. With digital, you can shoot and shoot, play around with fstop, shutter speed, exposure, everything, without wasting anything except time.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Other than a brief mention of "virtual fill flash" from Nikon, I don't see anything in any of these articles about flash capabilities. I don't care about the built-in flash, but having an external, powerful, fully integrated flash unit sitting a foot above my lens, held by a high-quality bracket, is extremely important to me. My Nikon F5 is almost never used without the SB28 flash unit (I tend to shoot people, indoors) and the combination is *SO* much more than the sum of the parts.
So here's my question and one of my big selection criteria: What non-interchangeable lens digital cameras are available with highly integrated and powerful external flash systems? All the usual requirement of a good lens, etc., also apply. Anybody have any experience/knowledge to share?
calibrated image * deviceprofile = output
High-end cameras can attach or apply various sensor profile transforms to the actual sensor data, leaving the pixels in a factory-average sRGB, such as AdobeRGB colorspace. Some can even apply or attach custom tone curves or custom colorspaces if you put the profiles on the memory card.
I haven't used Sane in a while, but it would also need a sensor profile capability.
Since the 2.0 release of GIMP, it has been making small steps leading up to support for attaching color profiles, but not actually applying color profiles.
I've heard that some people on the Xorg team have been considering the full scope of solutions for this problem, but I would rather they just hit the 90% mark with one feature: load an ICC display profile and program a single head on the video card to apply that transform for all X output on that head. Let's not wait for the whole thing (how to profile, how to work multihead, how to manage multiple profiles, etc.) to spring out of the head of Zeus.
CUPS or some other printing subsystem should be able to take ICC printer profiles also, and prefix printer jobs with those profile transforms where appropriate.
Then you'll see a LOT of people in the photography world erase their Windows and their Photoshop, and join the marketplace vote against product activation.
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I mainly shoot 35mm although I do some 6x6cm. I also have a 6.3mp DSLR.
Megapixels are important when it comes time to print. The issue is that a lot of people use their digicams to display images on the web and never make prints. For profoessional uses, prints are very important as well as having high quality sources for reproduction magazines and other publications. While 2mp may be good for the web, I find the prints lacking. Some people may not be able to tell the difference.
Before I got a digital camera, I had someone send me a sample portrait from their 3.0 megapixel camera. They claimed they were able to make 32x24" enlargements that looked great. I printed an 8x10 on my fairly good inkjet and I was dissapointed by the results when compared to both my scanned film (from a pretty good film scanner) and prints I've made in my darkroom. The amount of detail lost in things like the eyes were unacceptable to me. It's how when CD's first came out, they stripped out frequencies they thought were outside the human hearing range but people thought they didn't sound good until they added them back in.
NOw with the 6.3 camera, the results are better but I still like traditional prints from a good negative film, printed through a good lens. The camera also has better metering and white balance features than previous cameras as well. One of the main limitations of most digital sensors in my opinion is that they still use a Bayer pattern. If Foveon can ever reduce their noise issues and get a larger sensor with more megapixels I think that will be orders of magnitudes better. Comparing the current foveon output shot in it's ideal conditions versus cameras with more megapixels provides a stunning difference in the clarity of the photos. There is less interpolation as each sensor registers red, green and blue instead of just one and relying on interpolation.
What I like about digital is the convenience of getting from the camera to my proofing system in a short amount of time. With film I have a quicker turn around time than most since I can just load my film on reels, turn on the machine (as long as I have chemicals still in it) and have my film ready to scan in less than an hour. Though I then have to scan. I still prefer the quality of the prints though from my hand enlargements, especially when it comes to black and white.
When I need to make many copies of a print at a time, traditional methods still win out in terms of speed. After coming up with the right exposure and color filtration, which is quick and easy with a good color analyzer, and determining my dodging and burning strategy, I can turn out prints much faster than my inkjet. The difference in cost also favors traditional printing.
My point, yeah I don't believe megapixels are everything but more data isn't bad since with most newer cameras and sensors, the push for more megapixels also includes better in camera software, better light sensitivity with reduced noise levels, etc. There still needs to be a lot more done in the digital world but it's getting there.
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As mentioned, it is all in what you need it for. Many of today's consumer digital cameras are nothing less than outstanding. If you have had to suffer through the growth of digital cameras like I have ( $20-25,000 ) DCS1 Camera circa 1992 ( 1.5 megapixel approx ) and lousy color and contrast ) All you pukes :) should be thankful today.
Pros will always need large megapixel cameras. Example: Group shots, even then the industry is still working out bugs. The Kodak DCS n14 ( 13.5 megapixel camera )is awesome for group shots and such high detail / high enlargement things. Problem is that even with firmware patchs to it and its follow on model, heavy noise in the shadow areas makes it unusable for existing-low-light photography. An area that a 6 megapixel Nikon D1x or D100 has no problem in. Also as the high end systems are still very expensive, most pros have a narrow experience based on the few expensive systems they have / use.
A very excellent example of digital photography I have scene recently is a 100 years of Flight issue by National Geographic, all shot with a Nikon D1x ( 6 megapixel ) in Raw mode. Excellent photos. ( The Kodak 13.5 megapixel camera would have failed that mission because of all of the noise it still produces in the shadow areas.)
My current work cameras ( I am a USAF photographer ) are the Fuji S2, Nikon D100, Kodak 14n. This systems fit our needs ( industrial photography ). Having used film cameras for ages ( 8x10, 4x5, 120/220, 35mm ), I prefer digital cameras all the time now. Burning in and dodging, croping the digital way is a lot more fun and I find I can concentrate more on taking good photos.
2 to 3 megapixels is great for folks who are sending the pics as email attachments, posting them on the web or even printing snapshots at a kiosk to put in a photo album. You'll probably not see the difference between a 4x6 or even a 5x7 from such a camera and one printed from a 35mm neg.
Once you start printing larger sizes, the megapixels start to matter, but not necessarily as much as other factors like the glass. What good are twenty megapixels if the lens isn't up to the task? The more you do with the pictures the more the number and quality of those pixels begin to matter.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
I really don't think there's much difference once you get over 2 megapixels though
2.0 megapixels may be fine for you, but if you want enlarged colour prints, good luck.
And that's not really the point of this (extremely brief) article anyhow - it's not the number of pixels you have so much as how you use them (or what physical size within the camear they happen to be).
Part of the articles intent was to make a distinction between the "quality" of pixels - 8 megapixels on a small sensor (top-end "prosumer") will likely have more noise than 6 megapixels on a larger sensor (digital SLR) so that when you are viewing the images 1-1 the details can still be better with a lower pixel count.
There is also the matter of the Foveon "X3" chip - it's got only about 3.5 megapixels but each pixel records the red, green, and blue coming to it rather than the traditional sensors that will only record one of the colors (the final image is then an interpolation). The manufacturers say this is equivalent to 11 megapixels, but I don't think it's quite that good - certainly comparable to 6 to 8 however.
2 MP pictures do NOT work fine for 8x10 or 8.5x11. Unless you really don't care about what you picture looks like. What real live magazines? Certainly not a photo magazine or anyone else who cares what their images look like.
I agree that for most people 3-4MP is good for most people... most people take pictures that are blurry/horribly underexposed. For these people it really doesn't matter what kind of camera you give them, their pictures will always come out crappy (Even if they had a $3k DSLR) because they don't understand some basic principles of photography.
That said, this is a "news for nerds" site... I'd be willing to bet there are a few photography nerds on here that want more than a simple point and shoot. While some people may be fine with grainy, pixilated 8x10s taken with a 2MP camera, I'm not! In fact, my new D70 takes a LOT better pictures than my little 3.1MP point and shoot.
From midwiferytoday.com (did a quick google search):
"To print a full-bleed image inside the magazine, a photo must be 9 inches wide by 11.25 inches tall, at 200 dpi minimum resolution. That is well within the range of a 5 MP camera"
They then say that a 2MP camera is fine for "small" pictures. No respectable magazine is going to print a 2MP picture fullpage.
Thanks for a balanced perspective based on some actual experience. You do realize you're on /. and those aren't requirements, right?
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Technically true, but misleading. Displays have 100dpi at 24 bits per "dot" (pixel) for a possibility of any of 16.7 million colors per pixel; printers have (approximately, since black is basically equivalent to adding the other colors other colors) 3 bits per dot (On or Off for Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) for a total of 8 possible colors per dot. This means that you have to use a matrix of at least eight dots to even attempt to replicate the same color space that a monitor can display with one dot. This is why antialiasing is so effective on monitors, because a monitor's resolution is three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional