Printing - What's the biggest acceptable size ?

Hi,



We discussed with a few members here printing. I'm wondering wha'ts the biggest acceptable size (landscape pictures) we can acheive when printing images taken by Sigma dp2(or others) merrils at 300 dpi in your experience ?

I was peronally very happy with a labo print of 30x40 cm 300 dpi of this image, and wonder how bigger I could print it ?



Thanks

Best

Etienne

I've got a print hanging on my wall in landscape mode, of which only the height is cropped. It is 900 mm wide (nearly 36 inches) and it could easily have gone wider. It was taken by a dp3m on a tripod.

JohnKrz

JohnKRZ said:

I've got a print hanging on my wall in landscape mode, of which only the height is cropped. It is 900 mm wide (nearly 36 inches) and it could easily have gone wider. It was taken by a dp3m on a tripod.

JohnKrz

Click to expand...

Thanks for your answer. Did you upsize your image (with photoshop or other program) before ?

Etienne

Unfortunately I can't answer that question reliably at the moment. Someone else took it to the lab and had it printed and gave it to me as a present. I don't think it was resized, but don't know for sure. He only told me that the lab assistant asked with wonder what sort of camera took that photo, for he could easliy have enlarged it more, but I will check for you. He hadn't heard of sigma cameras by the way .

John

Capelson said:

Hi,

We discussed with a few members here printing. I'm wondering wha'ts the biggest acceptable size (landscape pictures) we can acheive when printing images taken by Sigma dp2(or others) merrils at 300 dpi in your experience ?

I was peronally very happy with a labo print of 30x40 cm 300 dpi of this image, and wonder how bigger I could print it ?

Click to expand...

Sorry to answer the question with questions:

Is up-sampling acceptable to you? If so, how much?

Will the viewers of the print stand at the standard viewing distance or will they stand closer? If so, how much closer?

The answers to these questions will answer your question with a few simple calculations based on the angular acuity of the human eye (HVA) which is 1 minute of arc or 0.29mrad.

Historically, 60 inch prints have turned out very well from the dP2 Merrill. 48" prints are a piece of cake for sharp originals.

As with any camera, the size of print varies directly with the subject matter. Highly detailed landscapes can't be printed nearly as large as for example, head and shoulder portraits. You have "X" number of pixels and if you use them to capture a small area of geography then you can expect good results from huge prints. On the other hand if you spread these pixels over a large geographic area, the amount of detail per subject area which can be reliably simulated is much smaller.

Many years ago NY fashion photographer Stephen Eastwood demonstrated just how true this was when he posted the images below taken with what would today be considered a very low resolution camera, the three megapixel Canon D30.

Lin


What Three Megapixels can do with the right subject....

xpatUSA said:

Capelson said:

Hi,

We discussed with a few members here printing. I'm wondering wha'ts the biggest acceptable size (landscape pictures) we can acheive when printing images taken by Sigma dp2(or others) merrils at 300 dpi in your experience ?

I was peronally very happy with a labo print of 30x40 cm 300 dpi of this image, and wonder how bigger I could print it ?

Click to expand...

Sorry to answer the question with questions:

Is up-sampling acceptable to you? If so, how much?

Click to expand...

The answer is not really that simple though, because even a supposed 1:1 pixel print doesn't mean much... depending on the printer that might be one drop of ink, or it might be several in what it considers to be a dot, or whatever... and then of course there is bleeding from the single "pixel" because of the paper and/or ink...

In fact I would argue a 1:1 print is actually slightly downsampling and image because of printing artifacts!

If you have a truly sharp image, printing about 2x is probably right to offset printing irregularities. Bayer images are already up sampled so printing at 1:1 is about right, but with a very sharp Foveon image you can do much better.

I have a DP3M image printed at 30x48 (slightly cropped in at the sides) and that looks fantastic at any viewing distance. But that is a really, really sharp image and any variance from perfection in sharpness becomes noticeable at that size...

Kendall Helmstetter Gelner said:

xpatUSA said:

Capelson said:

Hi,

We discussed with a few members here printing. I'm wondering wha'ts the biggest acceptable size (landscape pictures) we can acheive when printing images taken by Sigma dp2(or others) merrils at 300 dpi in your experience ?

I was peronally very happy with a labo print of 30x40 cm 300 dpi of this image, and wonder how bigger I could print it ?

Click to expand...

Sorry to answer the question with questions:

Is up-sampling acceptable to you? If so, how much?

Click to expand...

The answer is not really that simple though, because even a supposed 1:1 pixel print doesn't mean much... depending on the printer that might be one drop of ink, or it might be several in what it considers to be a dot, or whatever... and then of course there is bleeding from the single "pixel" because of the paper and/or ink...

In fact I would argue a 1:1 print is actually slightly downsampling and image because of printing artifacts!

If you have a truly sharp image, printing about 2x is probably right to offset printing irregularities. Bayer images are already up sampled so printing at 1:1 is about right, but with a very sharp Foveon image you can do much better.

I have a DP3M image printed at 30x48 (slightly cropped in at the sides) and that looks fantastic at any viewing distance. But that is a really, really sharp image and any variance from perfection in sharpness becomes noticeable at that size...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Since up-sampling is apparently desirable and since viewing distance appears not to be a significant factor, I hereby withdraw my questions to the OP.

Hi,

Thanks all for your advices, which are very helpful. I think the best is now to make a try based on them. I will tell you more about the results.

Thanks again, it's great to see that this forum is so active and supportive.

Etienne

The experts on this question are on the printers and printing forum. Generally you want to upsize in something like Photoshop.

Hi Etienne,

Keep in mind that the subject matter greatly influences the potential size. Here's something to whet your appetite for large prints....

Lin

Capelson said:

Hi,

Thanks all for your advices, which are very helpful. I think the best is now to make a try based on them. I will tell you more about the results.

Thanks again, it's great to see that this forum is so active and supportive.

Etienne

Click to expand...

I checked and the person who had it done said it wasn't upsized.

A print can be any size, depending on application and expectation. The large print tour featured a bunch of 48" wide prints and I don't think anyone would be able to legitamately complain about the quality of the those prints, they were impressive.

However, it depends on what you want from a print.

I have a funny attitude, I've never really bought in to this view that big prints can be softer because you need to stand back further (even if it's true). I like to see big prints with zero visible degradation compared to small print.

I don't think anyone would dare suggest that a 10 x 8 inch print from a Merrill is anything less that superb, so for me the largest print size would be the first point at which the image shows any hint of being less superb than a 10x8" even under the closed examination.

When does that happen for Merrill images? 19 inches wide, 24 inches, more?

p.s.

The opposite also applies, I've found. I can't see a sharpness or detail advantage in favour of my DP2M over a humble 6MP Fuji X10 compact in a 10" x 8" print, so if you keep your prints to this size or smaller, anything seems to be as good as anything!

p.p.s

Of course, your printing setup affects the result. I use a R2400 printer and matte paper - you'll get slightly crisper results with high gloss paper and perhaps a later generation printer. But I hate the look of glossy paper and love the flat matte for its evenness and freedom from hotspots.

Lin Evans said:

Hi Etienne,

Keep in mind that the subject matter greatly influences the potential size. Here's something to whet your appetite for large prints....

Lin

http://diglloyd.com/blog/2013/20130802_3-SigmaDPMerill-printing-really-big-is-awesome.html

Capelson said:

Hi,

Thanks all for your advices, which are very helpful. I think the best is now to make a try based on them. I will tell you more about the results.

Thanks again, it's great to see that this forum is so active and supportive.

Etienne

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Hi Lin,

Thanks for the lin. Very instructive !

Best

Etienne

In my time working as a commercial printer, I once printed an image from the web at about 5 dpi and about eight feet on the long edge. It that looked great as long as you were standing about 50 feet away

Homo erectus said:

In my time working as a commercial printer, I once printed an image from the web at about 5 dpi and about eight feet on the long edge. It that looked great as long as you were standing about 50 feet away

Click to expand...

Good point.

It is said that our visual acuity is about 1 arc-minute which is 0.29 milli-radians (mrad).

5 dpi gives one element = 0.2". At 50' that would be 0.2/(50x12) = 0.33mrad.

Or, for the average human, the "correct" viewing distance would be 57ft.

JohnKRZ said:

I checked and the person who had it done said it wasn't upsized.

Click to expand...

Thanks !