a method for reading out charge from an interlined ccd having a plurality of photo - sensing regions and a plurality of vertical shift registers , and each photosensitive region is mated respectively to a ccd of a vertical shift register and a color filter having a repeating pattern of two rows in which each row includes at least two colors spanning the photo - sensing regions , the method includes reading out one row from each of the two row pattern ; summing the same color from each row in the vertical shift register to reduce the resolution by one half ; without transferring charge out of the vertical shift register , repeating the reading and summing steps for the remaining row ; and reading out the charge in the vertical shift registers in a manner in which different colors are not summed together .