Large prints

[fish]

How large of a print can you make from a 6.3mp 10D photo (large/fine), and still have it look good?

[Shay Stephens]

Originally Posted by fish

How large of a print can you make from a 6.3mp 10D photo (large/fine), and still have it look good?

That depends entirely on the viewing distance. You can get a great looking sharp image from a 2mp camera and put it on a billboard, and as the cars pass by they would be amazed at the sharpness and clarity. Or you can have an 11mp image and view it on screen at 400% and it will look terrible ;-)

I find though that for normal to close viewing distances, 150ppi (pixels per inch) and higher looks very good. The farther away you get, the lower the resolution can be. A formula that may or may not be of interest:

target ppi = 3500 / viewing distance in inches

If you had an 11x14 made from a 10D for example, it would print at 186 ppi. It could be viewed from 19 inches away and look great.

If that image were blown up to 6 ppi, or an image 36x28 feet (still assuming the 11x4 aspect ratio here) you could view it from 48 feet away and it would look just as wonderful in its sharpness and clarity.

For critical work that will be viewed very close, I try to stick as close to 300ppi for prints as I can, so that would put it in the 8x10 and smaller arena.

[wxwax]

Or you could put it on TV at 75 dpi and get an enormous monitor.

Great answer Shay, that's tremendously informative.

[fish]

Good answer...my pea brain is still trying to grok it. I understand the viewing distance issue, but...

A large image from my 10D is 3072 x 2048. How do I get PPI from that?

[pathfinder]

Originally Posted by wxwax

Or you could put it on TV at 75 dpi and get an enormous monitor.

Great answer Shay, that's tremendously informative.

Originally Posted by fish

How large of a print can you make from a 6.3mp 10D photo (large/fine), and still have it look good?

Fish - you should be able to make nice 13 by 19 inch prints with a good inkjet printer from a D10 6 Mgpx files. I make nice 11 by 14s from cropped D10 files. Pictures taken at ISO 100 will look better than taken at 1600ISO of course.
Go to http://www.normankoren.com/ and look at the art gallery prints he has for sale that were shot with a D10 and printed on an Epson Stylus Photo 2200. The Epson 2200 prints nicer pictures for me than I ever was able to print in a darkroom with color negative material or black and white.
The picture below I can spread across my desktop of two 18 inch monitors and the image is sharp and almost grain free and almost 25 inches across.
One trick to rezzing up images in Photoshop is not to do it all at once but to record an action that enlarges your image size by 10% and repeat this several times. This seems to give better enlargements in Photoshop than rezzing up all at once. Page 68 in Kelby's book PhotShop for digital Photographers describes the technique in detail - but by enlarging the image size 10% at a time with resampling on, time after time - he does in 12 times in a row - you can create quite large images with much less degradation than you might think.

Pathfinder

[Shay Stephens]

Originally Posted by fish

A large image from my 10D is 3072 x 2048. How do I get PPI from that?

No tricks to that one ;-) it all depends on how big you print it.

if you have an image 3072x2048 and you print it without cropping at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) then the image would be:
3072 / 300 = 10.24 inches
2048 / 300 = 6.82 inches

if you print it at 30x20 inches then you would wind up with a ppi of:
3072 / 30 = 102.4 ppi
2048 / 20 = 102.4 ppi

Remember that ppi, or pixels per inch is not the same thing as dpi, or dots per inch when it comes to inkjet printers. Each pixel of the image printed on an inkjet printer is made of multiple "dots". The terms ppi and dpi are used quite often interchangeably, but for accuracy when dealing with math, I like to separate their meanings.

[fish]

Originally Posted by Shay Stephens

No tricks to that one ;-) it all depends on how big you print it.

if you have an image 3072x2048 and you print it without cropping at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) then the image would be:
3072 / 300 = 10.24 inches
2048 / 300 = 6.82 inches

if you print it at 30x20 inches then you would wind up with a ppi of:
3072 / 30 = 102.4 ppi
2048 / 20 = 102.4 ppi

Remember that ppi, or pixels per inch is not the same thing as dpi, or dots per inch when it comes to inkjet printers. Each pixel of the image printed on an inkjet printer is made of multiple "dots". The terms ppi and dpi are used quite often interchangeably, but for accuracy when dealing with math, I like to separate their meanings.

Excellent. Got it. Thanks Shay.

[Mike Werner]

You can also bring it to a commercial service (Fuji spring to mind) that can print out almost any size. They use photographic process, ie, the electronically photograph your pic, and then develop it/print. I've seen some amazing results.

[Andy]

i'm off on vacation and asked shay to watch my back here. of course, he answered beautifully... shay you are awesome!

i'm filing that answer away for future ref

[Baldy]

Yeah, that answer goes down as one of the best I've ever heard on the subject.

I made a point to see Star Wars Episode II in digital and was astonished that they could project it at 1920 x 1040 and have it look so good. The screen was big and your instincts tell you it's gonna look bad that big, but no.

[garymercer]

Originally Posted by Mike Werner

You can also bring it to a commercial service (Fuji spring to mind) that can print out almost any size. They use photographic process, ie, the electronically photograph your pic, and then develop it/print. I've seen some amazing results.

Mike,

I specialize in very large prints for clients. I've recently moved from medium format to digital and am looking for the best way to enlarge my prints to as large as 50x35 inches for frames photographic art. I've tried bicubic and genuine fractals with good success, but the quality still isn't up to my medium format enlargement standards. Can you tell me specifically who I need to contact to find out more about Fuji's commercial service for super enlargements? Thanks Gary

http://www.garymercerphoto.com

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by pathfinder

One trick to rezzing up images in Photoshop is not to do it all at once but to record an action that enlarges your image size by 10% and repeat this several times. This seems to give better enlargements in Photoshop than rezzing up all at once.

By this, you mean going into Image Size, and increasing the pixel count and the dot per inch fields, correct?

[wxwax]

hi Gary, welcome aboard. If Mike doesn't see your post, try sending him a PM, if you haven't already. And please post the answer!

[wxwax]

Originally Posted by mercphoto

By this, you mean going into Image Size, and increasing the pixel count and the dot per inch fields, correct?

According to Kelby, do the following:

* Go to Image/Image Size
* Check Resample Image
* Change Resample image Interpolation Method to Bicubic Smoother
* In the Document Size box, change the unit of measurement to Percent.
* Type in 110
* Click OK

Kelby claims that by doing a series of 10% increases, you get a clean resized image. Obviously, you have to repeat this step many times depending on how large you want to make your image. He has a sample image in his CS book that's been enlarged from 4.75" x 4.75" up to 20" x 20", and he claims there's a negligible loss of quality.

He suggests creating an Action, so that it takes little time to do the upsizing. I've done so, and resized images for broadcast, and not noticed any degradation. I have not tried it for a large print.

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by wxwax

Kelby claims that by doing a series of 10% increases, you get a clean resized image. Obviously, you have to repeat this step many times depending on how large you want to make your image. He has a sample image in his CS book that's been enlarged from 4.75" x 4.75" up to 20" x 20", and he claims there's a negligible loss of quality.

Thanks! Obviously, if you start from a RAW image the results will be better than if you start from a JPG. But I would imagine you could still take a JPG image and do the same thing and get favorable results. I'm thinking I'm going to risk the $$$ for two 20x30 posters, a before print and one after doubling the pixel count by repeating that method, and see what difference I see.

[Baldy]

Hi Gary,

Welcome!

I was reading several threads on imagingreview.com (cost $120/year to subscribe...bummer) and some photographers were comparing large prints from 4x5 cameras to 11-megapixel 1Ds, 14 and 22-megapixel medium-format back images.

The concensus was digital has four big advantages and one disadvantage. It was shaper with 14 and 22-megapixel backs, had more accurate color fidelity, less noise (smoother images) and an easier workflow.

The disadvantage is it didn't have as much range between highlight and shadow as film, particularly negative film, so they were complaining of either blown highlights or lost shadow detail in high-contrast lighting.

There was some chatter about upsizing via interpolation from lower-res images and the concensus was nothing beats original pixels.

One thing I very frequently see photographers do is upsize to something like 300 dpi, not knowing that large format printers are frequently in the range of 200 dpi, so you upsize and the lab downsizes, losing fidelity.

Here's more about that: http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality

Thanks,
Baldy

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by Baldy

There was some chatter about upsizing via interpolation from lower-res images and the concensus was nothing beats original pixels.

One thing I very frequently see photographers do is upsize to something like 300 dpi, not knowing that large format printers are frequently in the range of 200 dpi, so you upsize and the lab downsizes, losing fidelity.

Makes perfect sense. Upsizing create pixels by "guessing". The models that perform the guess might be pretty good, though, but its still a guess. It would seem if you want to go through the trouble of guessing new pixels, determine the dpi of the target printer and make your new image match that exactly. That way the printer isn't re-sampling your re-sampled image yet again.

[pathfinder]

Originally Posted by wxwax

According to Kelby, do the following:

* Go to Image/Image Size
* Check Resample Image
* Change Resample image Interpolation Method to Bicubic Smoother
* In the Document Size box, change the unit of measurement to Percent.
* Type in 110
* Click OK

Kelby claims that by doing a series of 10% increases, you get a clean resized image. Obviously, you have to repeat this step many times depending on how large you want to make your image. He has a sample image in his CS book that's been enlarged from 4.75" x 4.75" up to 20" x 20", and he claims there's a negligible loss of quality.

He suggests creating an Action, so that it takes little time to do the upsizing. I've done so, and resized images for broadcast, and not noticed any degradation. I have not tried it for a large print.

I have used Kelby's incremental repeated 10% enlargement ACTION in PS for some time and it works well for substantial poster size enlargements - but there are artists now who recommend NOT using it in PS, but using Bicubic Smoother and increasing the size all at once and the resolution to that needed by the printer - for images to be 50 inches I doubt you need any more than 200dpi and probably could get by with 150dpi for prints that large unless they are going to be inspected at a 1 foot distance.

[pathfinder]

Originally Posted by mercphoto

Thanks! Obviously, if you start from a RAW image the results will be better than if you start from a JPG. But I would imagine you could still take a JPG image and do the same thing and get favorable results. I'm thinking I'm going to risk the $$$ for two 20x30 posters, a before print and one after doubling the pixel count by repeating that method, and see what difference I see.

You would not have to print them to see - just enlarge them and look at them in the PROOF view in PS - right?

[pathfinder]

Originally Posted by garymercer

Mike,

I specialize in very large prints for clients. I've recently moved from medium format to digital and am looking for the best way to enlarge my prints to as large as 50x35 inches for frames photographic art. I've tried bicubic and genuine fractals with good success, but the quality still isn't up to my medium format enlargement standards. Can you tell me specifically who I need to contact to find out more about Fuji's commercial service for super enlargements? Thanks Gary

http://www.garymercerphoto.com

Welcome aboard Gary -- Interesting topic large scale enlargement -


I looked at the portion of the yellow flower of the 53 inch image on your smugmug site, and the there is a yellow band next to the petals of the flower - is this due to camera movement or chromatic aberration or errors in upsizing or what?

My images have been limited to 19 inches due to my printer, but I will try looking at some images in the proof view in PS and see what they might look like printed at 3 x 5 feet. Interesting discussion.