We have purchased a Fuji S20 Pro Digital Camera.  It has a 6MP
"Normal" Jpeg mode and a 6MP "Fine" Jpeg mode.  Can you please explain
the technical difference and also explain the difference in what the
print will look like?

Hello digitalpixman-ga,

The technical difference is the amount of JPEG compression used to
store your picture. Both settings record the picture in your camera's
highest resolution of 2,832 x 2,128 (roughly 6.03 megapixels).
However, in  6M Fine mode, your camera compresses the picture less
(resulting in pictures which take up a larger space on the camera
itself) but the positive trade off is that they are of higher quality.
In 6m Normal mode, you can fit more pictures on a same-sized memory
card. I found this table which lists how many pictures you can store
on a memory card of different sizes at the two different modes.

Card Size	6M Fine		6M Normal
16MB		5		10
32MB		10		21
64MB		21		42
128MB		42		85
256MB		86		171
512MB		172		343

As you can see, you can roughly store twice as many pictures on any
sized card in 6M Normal mode than 6M Fine mode. But don't take
pictures at 6M Normal if you intend on post-processing these pictures
in Photoshop, or eventually printing them out large format at a high
quality printshop. I found an article on JPEG compression which
states:


"
The quality lost from compression can not be restored--ever--so if you
later decide to edit your already over-compressed photos (even just to
crop them), the quality is further reduced. You can tell if your
images have been over-compressed by zooming in on them in a photo
editor and looking for "JPEG artifacts." These are areas with a blocky
appearance such as what you can see in the example at the top of this
page. Don't check for JPEG over-compression in an image viewer,
because they usually do interpolated zoom that will not show you the
pixels accurately.
"
http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/digitalimaging/qt/overcompression.htm


You can click on the link below to see an example of JPEG compression
artifacts. Now since we're talking about high quality 6 megapixel
pictures, the difference in quality may never show up if you're only
printing 4x6 pictures, or using them for webpages. You'd really have
to get in there with a zoom lens to see any sort of banding or
blocking. I found two example pictures taken using the Fuji FinePix
S602. While it is not your model exactly, the compression algorithms
used by both cameras will be similar enough.


6M Fine
http://www.okimoto.ne.jp/muray/Review/FPs602/s60201.jpg

6M Normal
http://www.okimoto.ne.jp/muray/Review/FPs602/s60202.jpg


You should be paying specific attention to the curved grating on the
center walkway. Near the far end of the walkway on the right side, you
start to lose some detail with the 6M Normal compressed picture. Also
look at the crosshatched walkway railing in the same area of the
picture, in the 6M Fine, it is less blurred and less muddled. We're
really picking pixels here since the resolution is so high, but the
difference in quality becomes important for large format printing and
post processing digital editing. Otherwise, 6M Normal may suit your
needs just fine. I've also linked you to an article on Steve's
Digicams, which I think is the best website for digital camera
reviews. He goes over almost every feature of your camera, and also
has a large gallery with sample pictures taken at different settings.


http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/s20pro.html
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/s20pro_samples.html


Thank you for your question, it was a pleasure answering it.

skermit-ga

Great answer!  Above and beyond the call of duty!  Thank you so much
for your complete answer.