I'm shopping for a Digital Camera and need some expert advice on the amount of mega pixels I need?

I'm begining to work with my sister in sublamation printing. It's a new business venture of hers and we need a digital camera to take pictures & do blowups. I believe the largest blowup we would be doing is 16" X 16" . I believe that is the maximum that can be run through the heat press. I'm wanting to know what amount of megapixels I need to do this & have a good studio quality print. I have been told I could do it with 4 or 5 mp's if I use adobe Photoshop ( which I have CS2 ver9 ). Then again I have been told I need somewhere between 6 to 10 mp's to get studio quality prints at that size.
Now the next thing is do I go point & shoot or SLR ( which I have found SLR's are expensive even used on ebay or Amazon )! I have seen 4mp's SLR's used that are within or near my budget for this. A new point & shoot is in the budget I have for a camera! I'm working with a budget of $200 for this remember this is a new business and money is tight!
I need some professional advice on this! Thanks!

For 16x16, I think you need a 10 MP camera. Here's my logic. I PREFER to print at 300 dpi for best quality. I find that 200 dpi is acceptable in most situations.
16 x 200 = 3200
3200 x 3200 = 10,240,000
That's 10 megapixels.

The problem is, even in a point and shoot, you are going to have to at least double your budget. Here are two cameras to consider. Note that one is "only" 8 MP, although it would probably produce acceptable results.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_...

If you will be taking one photo at the time and then printing it, you can probably stick with the "starter" memory card they give you with the camera for a while. Before long, or if you are going to do more than one shot at the time before you print, you will want a 1 GB card. I recommend Sandisk Ultra II. They come with inage recovery software that could really save your butt in a business situation.

Bear in mind that you are looking for a "good studio quality print" and you also want SATISFIED CUSTOMERS to get your business started. There is nothing worse then promising a high quality image and then disappointing your customer. This would be a death knell for your business.

Larry - You will be happy with the A540. Canon's sensor shoots at 180 ppi and they state that it will print out to (almost) 16x12 in acceptable print resolution. My son has an A620 (also 180 ppi) and I believe Canon. Sam Report It

Is it not just megapixels. A lot of camera have more pixels than can be resolved by their optics. Very roughly (some exceptions but not many), any point and shoot with more than 4 megapixels is wasting pixels. You'll need a GOOD SLR to really use a 10 megapixel image. For studio 16x16 print you will need more than 20 megapixels to match film, but if you are using a heat press (making t-shirt ?) the press blur a studio quality image, and you probably only need 4 to 5 pixels (from a point & Shoot).

For large prints, more mega pixels translates to better quality. For the most part, anything over 5 mega pixels will compare with a standard print from a film camera. Here are some cameras to look for:
Panasonic Lumix DCM-LZ5K (my suggestion because it has the best optical zoom).
Cannon Powershot A-540

You may want to consider purchasing an extra memory card for it as well. It will probably run about $50. For more information, try looking up these cameras on sears.com.

Agree with Bluemoon. More mega pixels doesn't necessary mean better picture quality. I once bring a 4 mega pixel file to have a 30"X20" photo quality poster printed at a local print shop. The result was very good. One way for you to see how many mega pixel you really need is to download different sizes photo file from the Internet or ask all your friends who has digital camera to take a picture of something and have it print it out and see what will be the ideal mega pixel for you. Once you know how many mega pixel you'll need. Pick the better picture quality camera that you can afford.