Why is the marketing emphasis on the number of pixels a camera captures misleading? how can too many pixels be bad?

That’s one reason people usually think the more pixels a camera has, the better its pictures. But that’s not necessarily true. Lots of things affect the quality of pictures, including the design of the sensor, the data processing that happens in the camera, whether there’s compression and how much, the quality of the attached lens, the exposure, the size of the pixels and of course, the software you use if you’ve shot RAW. Of all those, the size of the pixels may be the most important, and the least understood. Pixels capture light and turn it into data. That data is made up of both good and bad information. The bad information is what we refer to as “noise,” which results in lower color saturation and a grainy, or textured look to the image. All pixels collect the same amount of noise, but larger pixels collect more of the “good” data than smaller pixels. With all else equal, a larger pixel will result in a higher quality image (less noise) than a smaller one.

I hope this helps. Have a great day.

It just plays on the people's psychology when u bring in big numbers..but pixels plays an important role in camera