How does magnification differ from resoultion?

Answer 1

For digital imagery, the "resolution" is the number of dots used to display a picture (horizontal and vertical). When you zoom in, the dots get bigger and bigger, until you reach a point where the image is no longer clear.

Often printers require more dots to keep a clear image, in part because many of the laser printers aren't able to control the color intensity well.

Magnification is done with optics. So, you retain the number of pixels.

With a good device, you can do optical magnification or zooming, and have enough pixels to zoom in a bit too and maintain a good image.

Note, Megapixels are the number of dots (in millions) obtained by multiplying the X and Y resolutions.

So, a 3,000 x 3,000 camera would give 9,000,000 pixels, or about 9 MP. However, no common computer monitor is capable of displaying the image at that resolution, so it would be necessarily shrunk (or have a portion zoomed in) to display.

Answer 2

Magnification is the process of making an object appear larger, usually through optical systems like microscopes. Resolution, on the other hand, refers to the level of detail that can be distinguished in an image, often measured in pixels or line pairs per millimeter. In simpler terms, magnification enlarges the image, while resolution determines how clear and detailed the image appears.