If you read around you will find that lots of people natter on about "image quality". In particular, they go on and on about how to improve the quality of an image.

They will talk about lenses, sensors, light sources, manipulations and other things that you or I wouldn't know a great deal about.

Ignore these people and don't let these mundane arguments put you off taking superb images that anyone with a modicum of common sense can easily do.

The quality of your image will be enhanced by:

- making sure your camera is in good condition
- composing as best you can
- avoid extremes of light and dark in your photographs
- keeping your lenses clean
- focussing accurately
- avoid using the extremes of aperture settings
- choosing the correct shutter speed for your subject
- avoid camera shake
- use the appropriate light source
- avoid colour casts (use correct white balance)
- avoid very long shutter speeds

Don't let others convince you that you need a camera with huge numbers of megapixels - 3 or more megapixels will produce great images. My own compact camera is a 2 megapixel Canon which has always been more than enough.

Your image quality is also dependent upon correctly calibrating your computer screen, the type of printer you have and the paper you use to print on. But if you focus on the picture-taking stage then you will be well on the way to producing great images.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.