Who said we can’t print big!!

[michaeladawson]

So we moved house last year and finally got ourselves a couple of decent 4K TVs. We installed a 55” Hisense QLED in our family room area at the back of the house. For some reason I’d never thought to add my favourite shots to a flash drive and display them…. Until now.
Apologies for the phone shots but I wanted to show them being displayed and the detail retained with even my paultry 24mp APS-C sensor. These are well over 1m wide so I’d have no qualms about printing them this large after seeing this.

If a 4K TV and 24 MP photo is good enough for you, who am I to argue. However, you can do better with an actual print that uses far more MP to capture the image.

That was my whole point, if it looks this great on a TV then it'll undoubtedly translate to print.

No it won't "undoubtedly" translate to print. It all depends on your standards. Get up close to a 4K TV and you see a mess of pixels. If that's what you want to see in your 55" wall print, then go for it. That's not what you will see if you use a camera that can provide 240 to 300 dpi for print. Billboards are very low resolution and look fantastic from 200 feet away. If you're going to put museum ropes up to prevent people from looking at your wall photos from anything less than 6-10 feet away, you'll be fine.

No one really means "you can't print big" when they talk about large prints from smaller MP sensors.

What do they mean then? when they specifically say "I like to print big so APS-C isn't suitable"... i reckon ive seen that exact statement (in various forms) well over 10000 times over the years of being on photography forums, and that is the very subject i was broaching with this thread.

You'd have to take each statement individually. First thing I'd say is APS-C is not the limiting factor. Fujifilm now has 40 MP APS-C cameras. Anyone using a 24 MP full frame camera has the same problem. It's not an APS-C issue.

I'll stick to my point that you really want 240 dpi in your print if possible for best quality. You aren't going to get best quality from a print that is output at 125 dpi. Will it look horrible? Probably not. Is it good enough for you? Maybe. But you can't speak for me.

We should all remember that people were making very large prints as far back as 20 years ago when 12 MP cameras were top of the line. It can be done, and it was done. And it can look very good. But it isn't going to look as good side-by-side against output from a 45 or 60 MP camera. Hell, what do you need a medium format 100 MP camera for? People making these statements are looking for the absolute best print IQ.

 

[ScottDE1964]

Here’s an actual big print from a Fuji image. 40x60 on stretched canvas. Yeah, don’t believe anyone who says you can’t go big on APS-C

 

[DJ STU-C]

So we moved house last year and finally got ourselves a couple of decent 4K TVs. We installed a 55” Hisense QLED in our family room area at the back of the house. For some reason I’d never thought to add my favourite shots to a flash drive and display them…. Until now.
Apologies for the phone shots but I wanted to show them being displayed and the detail retained with even my paultry 24mp APS-C sensor. These are well over 1m wide so I’d have no qualms about printing them this large after seeing this.

If a 4K TV and 24 MP photo is good enough for you, who am I to argue. However, you can do better with an actual print that uses far more MP to capture the image.

That was my whole point, if it looks this great on a TV then it'll undoubtedly translate to print.

No it won't "undoubtedly" translate to print. It all depends on your standards. Get up close to a 4K TV and you see a mess of pixels. If that's what you want to see in your 55" wall print, then go for it. That's not what you will see if you use a camera that can provide 240 to 300 dpi for print. Billboards are very low resolution and look fantastic from 200 feet away. If you're going to put museum ropes up to prevent people from looking at your wall photos from anything less than 6-10 feet away, you'll be fine.

No one really means "you can't print big" when they talk about large prints from smaller MP sensors.

What do they mean then? when they specifically say "I like to print big so APS-C isn't suitable"... i reckon ive seen that exact statement (in various forms) well over 10000 times over the years of being on photography forums, and that is the very subject i was broaching with this thread.

You'd have to take each statement individually. First thing I'd say is APS-C is not the limiting factor. Fujifilm now has 40 MP APS-C cameras. Anyone using a 24 MP full frame camera has the same problem. It's not an APS-C issue.

I'll stick to my point that you really want 240 dpi in your print if possible for best quality. You aren't going to get best quality from a print that is output at 125 dpi. Will it look horrible? Probably not. Is it good enough for you? Maybe. But you can't speak for me.

We should all remember that people were making very large prints as far back as 20 years ago when 12 MP cameras were top of the line. It can be done, and it was done. And it can look very good. But it isn't going to look as good side-by-side against output from a 45 or 60 MP camera. Hell, what do you need a medium format 100 MP camera for? People making these statements are looking for the absolute best print IQ.

I can’t be chewed arguing with you, it was a lighthearted thread, try not to take everything so seriously in life

 

[MrAndreas]

Hi. I am not debating your point about printing big. My 24MP images (after some cropping down to about 20, if not less) were printed as 36" posters. From a 40MP sensor, it would only be better.

In theory, yes, due to more severe downsampling. In practice, for a human viewer, it may or may not appear perceptually better. To me, I can distinguish between a "40MP downsampled to 20MP" photo and a "24MP downsampled to 20MP" photo (of the same scene) when I view them side by side, and not 100% confidently. If not a side-by-side comparison, and from a reasonable viewing distance, I doubt I can confidently say "this is from a 40MP sensor" or "this is from a 24MP sensor". I'd rather discuss the photography.

My thought is whether we can really compare a print to a TV display.

We can compare anything to anything, even apples to oranges — who can disallow that?

TV is a self-illuminated device.

Sure, this makes a real difference in viewing.

The color profile or brightness can be adjusted. In most situations it is difficult to get close to see the detail. The brightness would blind me.

Ummm, did you try calibrating your screens with a device that accounts for ambient light?

Prints on the other hand invite people to come and look up close. Would that make a difference?

On the plus side, a decent print would have 200 to 300 dpi, which is very good compared to around 80ppi for a 55" 4K TV.

Yes, this is the second fundamental difference.

But nowadays, you need to be really rich to afford your own photo gallery — a big hall with its walls covered in large paper prints — and an archive room to store hundreds of unexposed prints under proper conditions. A 55" or 65" TV in your living room is a much more realistic approach for viewing your photos with family and friends. Just don't forget to switch off the super-poppy, vivid "showroom mode" and set the TV to an adequate brightness and contrast. Choose the neutral color profile (not a "cinema" or other LUT-produced look). Turn off the TV's own sharpening. Real calibration (as featured on computer monitors) is probably impossible with standalone home TVs.

Thanks.

 

[michaeladawson]

I can’t be chewed arguing with you, it was a lighthearted thread, try not to take everything so seriously in life

I'm not trying to be rude, despite how I may come across to you. I just don't think your 4K TV test is a real indication of high end print quality.

If you read everything I wrote I leave plenty of room for lower output resolutions that I have stated can be perfectly fine for many people. Case in point... my most recent mention of output from 12 MP cameras. That was the norm 15 years ago. There was a guy in the Nikon forum who made huge wall size landscape prints from his 12 MP D3. Something like 7 feet across for display in offices, conference rooms, etc. And they were very nice prints. But he was always looking for better resolution output.

So if he could make beautiful output with a 12 MP camera, I would think a 24 MP should produce even better prints. And very pleasing prints. But as I wrote before, even a 24 MP camera can only produce a 125 ppi print at 55 inches diagonal. And your 4K TV is only showing you 80 ppi resolution. A 240 ppi print is capable of showing much better resolution than a 4K TV.

So yes, those people who seek the ultimate resolution in print will say that 24 MP can't print big. And for their standards they are correct. Although they might be more correct if they said they "don't want to" instead of "can't". If one chooses to print at "only" 150 ppi the output will look fine and nearly indistinguishable from a 240 dpi print as long as you resist the urge to walk up and look at it from 2 feet away.