Pentax Optio S55

Picture Quality / Size Options (7.5)
The Optio S55 offers three quality levels and six image sizes. The image sizes are: 2560 x 1920, 2304 x 1728, 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1024 x 768, and 640 x 480, all of which can be set to "Good," "Better," and "Best" quality settings. Quality levels indicate the amount of compression the camera imposes when creating JPEG files. Best images are much less compressed than Good images, so they are about three times larger. Compression works by reducing the amount of data in a picture, so as compression increases, quality goes down. "Best" quality is significantly better than "Better" or "Good."

Picture Effects Options (7.5)
The Optio S55 offers some unusual picture effects. In-camera digital effects can appear superficial, and editing effects are generally higher quality when applied post-capture in a software application. However, in-camera effects are good for some occasional fun and the S55 has included a far wider range of options than most cameras in its class.

The "Two-in-One" mode allows the user to take two images side by side to form a single "split-screen" picture. The "Panorama Assist" mode takes a row of pictures to be later combined into a panorama. Though the camera cannot combine images, this mode provides data to help ACDSee software combine them on a computer.

The most mainstream, and perhaps the most useful, is a setting to make black-and-white images. There is also a setting to make "Sepia" images, which are black-and-white images turned brown.

The other settings fiddle with color. "Black-and-white + Red" renders everything in the scene black-and-white, except for red things, which appear red. "Black-and-white + Blue" and "Black-and-white + Green" also drain out all colors except one. A typical use for this setting would be a wedding portrait, in which the bride holds a bouquet of red roses. Three other settings, called "Red," "Green" and "Blue" add a tint of their color to everything in the picture, except very brightly-colored objects. So, on the "Red" setting, you might be able to take a picture of a bright green bottle and a blue flower against a rosy red background.