Darren Young
Well-known member
Here's a good one to consider: A while back I came across a "guide" to the necessary megapixel resolution for a given print size (I think it was posted on Ophoto's page) that had some interesting numbers. The chart started out at 640x480 as minimum for a good 4"x6" print, and went up to 1560x1280 or something like that (I don't have the chart with me right now) for an 8"x10" print. So far, so good. But then the chart continues to 11x14, 16x20 and 20x24 -- and the minimum resolution stays at the 1560x1280.....
Didn't make sense until I remembered something from art school called "reading distance", meaning the normal distance at which one would view anything from a magazine page to a billboard. For example, a poster looks pretty good from across the room; but walk up to it and look at a 4x6 section of it and the quality ain't too thrilling. However, that's not how you would look at ("view") posters -- they're designed to be looked at from that far of a reading distance. So now back to our hero with his trusty Uzi; he shoots a really great picture that he wants to blow up to 16x20 or whatever and hang on the wall -- is that why the resolution #'s on the chart stayed the same past 8x10, which, coincidentally, is usually the biggest image a person can comfortably take in at normal reading distance (as in reading a piece of paper)? Might be the reason our everyday typing paper is universally around 8.5"x11", and that's usually used vertically, i.e. the normal human reading distance. I tried playing around with some regular photo prints, and found that, lo & behold, when I was looking at an 11x14, I started holding it at arms' length. Pretty interesting, try it out for yourselves and see what happens.
So here's the $64K question: How do you experienced digital shooters out there feel about this resolution system? I've heard a lot of comments on this forum about a 2.1mp Oly being great for prints "up to 8x10", but has anyone got experience with going past that? Whaddya all think about the reading distance factor?
(This should be good for about 10,000 responses!
)...) Thanks in advance > > Darren
Didn't make sense until I remembered something from art school called "reading distance", meaning the normal distance at which one would view anything from a magazine page to a billboard. For example, a poster looks pretty good from across the room; but walk up to it and look at a 4x6 section of it and the quality ain't too thrilling. However, that's not how you would look at ("view") posters -- they're designed to be looked at from that far of a reading distance. So now back to our hero with his trusty Uzi; he shoots a really great picture that he wants to blow up to 16x20 or whatever and hang on the wall -- is that why the resolution #'s on the chart stayed the same past 8x10, which, coincidentally, is usually the biggest image a person can comfortably take in at normal reading distance (as in reading a piece of paper)? Might be the reason our everyday typing paper is universally around 8.5"x11", and that's usually used vertically, i.e. the normal human reading distance. I tried playing around with some regular photo prints, and found that, lo & behold, when I was looking at an 11x14, I started holding it at arms' length. Pretty interesting, try it out for yourselves and see what happens.
So here's the $64K question: How do you experienced digital shooters out there feel about this resolution system? I've heard a lot of comments on this forum about a 2.1mp Oly being great for prints "up to 8x10", but has anyone got experience with going past that? Whaddya all think about the reading distance factor?
(This should be good for about 10,000 responses!
)...) Thanks in advance > > Darren