Printing large

[left eye]

Let's say you want to print an image that you've made with whatever camera you have and if you were to print it at the native resolution, your print would wind up being 180 dpi. Would it be better to resize the print and print it at 360 dpi or leave it at 180 dpi and native resolution?

Maybe I missed something, but are you printing it yourself--which is what the responses seem to assume--or sending it to a service for printing?

My general view is that if you're having a service print it, then send them the file at native resolution (cropped to the right proportions for the print size) and let them handle resampling as necessary plus final sharpening. The odds that you and your software and technique will do a substantially better job than a good service will are low; the odds are higher that you'll just create a bloated file, and maybe even that's not as good as what the service would achieve.

My experience is the exact opposite, but I am more particular than most about the large print I want to see behind glass.

I always supply the file at the print size (and ppi), it's not just all about the enlarging 'algorithm' or 'native resolution'. When you enlarge you may need to reduce sharpness, increase noise and pull the gamma down a touch to ensure a more solid image (on a large-scale prints tone can weaken), and add a gaussian blur layer at about 5% opacity. I even do some black glow to enrichen blacks, ...but this is my workflow to get the fine-art print usually unachievable in digital media.

The basic response I'm giving is, if you are on the enthusiast level and not really sure of what you are doing (yet) then yes give them the file at the camera's resolution, otherwise provide the printer with the file you really want to see.

I've had so many issues with other printing studios being so far off from what I want, the only way to get close is to give them the exact file I would print from myself, scaled to size, and with all the other weird adjustments I make for extra-large prints.

Mostly I print myself with my own large-format printer, but for exhibitions abroad it is often required that the printing is done there - hence sending the large file I would print myself.

 

[JimKasson]

Thank you! That's the answer I've been looking for.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to have helped. But read Jim's sub-thread too, if nothing else as food for thought.

How much can you interpolate before the image breaks apart? Let's say it will be viewed from a foot away. How big can it be if you start let's say from a 20mp file?

That depends on the image, your goals for the image, the substrate, and your standards.

 

[Macro guy]

Thank you! That's the answer I've been looking for.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to have helped. But read Jim's sub-thread too, if nothing else as food for thought.

How much can you interpolate before the image breaks apart? Let's say it will be viewed from a foot away. How big can it be if you start let's say from a 20mp file?

That depends on the image, your goals for the image, the substrate, and your standards.

Goals - gallery exhibition

Substrate - RC paper semi gloss or something similar.

Standards - give me a ball park.

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

How much can you interpolate before the image breaks apart? Let's say it will be viewed from a foot away. How big can it be if you start let's say from a 20mp file?

IMO, first, that depends at least as much on the image / subject and your personal standards as it does on any technical issue. So I agree with Jim. Second, you really need to distinguish between what will look good at a viewing distance sufficient to comfortably take in the whole image, versus what will look good on close inspection. IMOPO, if you start with a high-quality 24 MP or higher, then for any print size you must get closer than an appropriate viewing distance for the whole image to see significant quality issues in the print. Of course, large prints tend to encourage close inspection of detail.

As a technical matter, there's a very wide range. At one extreme, people with really good eyesight, on close inspection, of really high-contrast details, can see to somewhere in the range of the 360 ppi that most Epsons can print. Of course, getting a visible 360 ppi requires printing on something really smooth, but let's say one of the white films (very smooth, also large gamut). If your sensor has an anti-alias filter, then to achieve 360 ppi of real detail, you may need more more than 500 ppi of sensor pixels, although cameras without anti-alias filters might only need around 400 ppi of sensor pixels. This tells you that 16x20 inches would be too big for a GFX 50R.

Going pretty far toward the other extreme, those whose near vision isn't so great, looking at a print on a slightly-textured paper, might not see anything amiss with 150 ppi or less. And for some subjects, Topaz Gigapixel AI does an amazingly good job at 4:1 enlargement. So with the aforementioned GFX 50R, how does, say, 160x200 inches sound to you? I guess you'll have to print panels and mount them adjoining each other.

Personally, the lowest I can recall going on a large print was 24x30 inches from a slight crop from a 6 MP DSLR. So I had 80 ppi native. This was a decade or more ago, and since then upsampling has improved. Nobody who liked the subject matter and saw the print expressed any quality issue, or even agreed with my concerns over it. But that's not to say I wouldn't have rather captured the scene with a 50 or 75 MP camera, or that doing so wouldn't provide a visibly-better print.

 

[Greg7579]

Maybe it's better if some of us just don't print.

Not you Macro. I mean me.

But interesting stuff and I added a lot of it to my notes.


Greg Johnson, San Antonio, Texas

Greg Johnson’s albums | Flickr

www.flickr.com

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

For people with the skills and patience to do that, certainly doing the resampling and sharpening yourself makes sense. But are you +2 or +3 standard deviations to the good in your skills, care, and workflow sophistication?* Regardless, you're very much an exception.

I'll take all that as a compliment.

As it was intended!

But my first response--framed as generalities and probabilities--was premised on the assumption that the question indicated a substantially lower level of digital darkroom (or at least print preparation) experience, skills, tools, and patience than you have. Knowing your audience and responding appropriately can be a bit tough on online forums like DPR.

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

Maybe it's better if some of us just don't print.

Not you Macro. I mean me.

Yes, but in your case, I think that's mainly because at some point you'd wear out the patience and understanding that your wife--Theresa, I think you said?--shows toward your hobby. If you got, say, an Epson P700, and discovered the joy of holding a print of one of your photos that you like, made on an interesting paper, well, pretty soon you'd be over in the printers and printing forum asking whether you should get an Epson P9570 or a Canon Pro-4100. And it wouldn't take too many 40x50 inch prints to wear out the patience of a saint.

So really, I don't know whether to tell you to try getting a few medium to large (like 11x14 or 16x20 or maybe 24x30 inch) prints from a high-quality service, or not. Something inkjet on Canson Platine or Red River Palo Duro Softgloss Rag would look really nice. But then so does domestic tranquility, so ...

 

[Erik Kaffehr]

Maybe it's better if some of us just don't print.

Not you Macro. I mean me.

Yes, but in your case, I think that's mainly because at some point you'd wear out the patience and understanding that your wife--Theresa, I think you said?--shows toward your hobby. If you got, say, an Epson P700, and discovered the joy of holding a print of one of your photos that you like, made on an interesting paper, well, pretty soon you'd be over in the printers and printing forum asking whether you should get an Epson P9570 or a Canon Pro-4100. And it wouldn't take too many 40x50 inch prints to wear out the patience of a saint.

So really, I don't know whether to tell you to try getting a few medium to large (like 11x14 or 16x20 or maybe 24x30 inch) prints from a high-quality service, or not. Something inkjet on Canson Platine or Red River Palo Duro Softgloss Rag would look really nice. But then so does domestic tranquility, so ...

Hi,

What strikes me a bit is that I normally print at A2, around 16"x23". There are two reasons for that:

• It is the maximum print size for printer. Going larger would mean buying a free standing printer.
• It is a practical size that fits reasonable sized frames I can buy with custom cut passepartouts.

For a couple of exhibitions I have made larger prints and I do have some 70x100 cm prints on my wall. But, all large prints are pretty old.

Although I have been shooting both MFD and Sony A7rII, both around 40 MP, I don't have any large prints on the wall at home shot on either camera.

I had the honor to decorate some hundred square meters of office space at my former work and there I used some images with my high resolution cameras, but many images were just from 24 MP 24x36 mm.

So, I enjoy having around 40 MP, but I would say that 24 MP was quite enough for almost all my work. That doesn't mean that I would go back to 24 MP. But I guess that I am quite comfortable where I sit.

Once the image quality is good enough, I don't think improvements matter a lot.

I would think that this was my highest rated exhibition image, the original was 24 MP...

Best regards

Erik

--
Erik Kaffehr
Website: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net
Magic uses to disappear in controlled experiments…
Gallery: http://echophoto.smugmug.com
Articles: http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles

 

[JimKasson]

Maybe it's better if some of us just don't print.

Not you Macro. I mean me.

Yes, but in your case, I think that's mainly because at some point you'd wear out the patience and understanding that your wife--Theresa, I think you said?--shows toward your hobby. If you got, say, an Epson P700, and discovered the joy of holding a print of one of your photos that you like, made on an interesting paper, well, pretty soon you'd be over in the printers and printing forum asking whether you should get an Epson P9570 or a Canon Pro-4100. And it wouldn't take too many 40x50 inch prints to wear out the patience of a saint.

Not to mention the esthetics of a 44 inch printer in the living room.

So really, I don't know whether to tell you to try getting a few medium to large (like 11x14 or 16x20 or maybe 24x30 inch) prints from a high-quality service, or not. Something inkjet on Canson Platine or Red River Palo Duro Softgloss Rag would look really nice. But then so does domestic tranquility, so ...

 

[JimKasson]

Thank you! That's the answer I've been looking for.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to have helped. But read Jim's sub-thread too, if nothing else as food for thought.

How much can you interpolate before the image breaks apart? Let's say it will be viewed from a foot away. How big can it be if you start let's say from a 20mp file?

That depends on the image, your goals for the image, the substrate, and your standards.

Goals - gallery exhibition

Substrate - RC paper semi gloss or something similar.

Standards - give me a ball park.

Read this for the ideas about the effect of the image to be printed on the resolution necessary.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sharpness-is-overrated/

Can you post a full-size version of an image you want to print? Than I can comment on the necessary resolution for your 20 MP file.

If you have a small printer, this is something you can test for yourself by printing a crop at the same scale as your intended large print.

Jim

 

[Macro guy]

Thank you! That's the answer I've been looking for.

You're welcome, and I'm happy to have helped. But read Jim's sub-thread too, if nothing else as food for thought.

How much can you interpolate before the image breaks apart? Let's say it will be viewed from a foot away. How big can it be if you start let's say from a 20mp file?

That depends on the image, your goals for the image, the substrate, and your standards.

Goals - gallery exhibition

Substrate - RC paper semi gloss or something similar.

Standards - give me a ball park.

Read this for the ideas about the effect of the image to be printed on the resolution necessary.

https://blog.kasson.com/the-last-word/sharpness-is-overrated/

Can you post a full-size version of an image you want to print? Than I can comment on the necessary resolution for your 20 MP file.

If you have a small printer, this is something you can test for yourself by printing a crop at the same scale as your intended large print.

Jim

Hi Jim,



I have picked the image with the finest detail I have to make it most difficult so that I could get the most conservative estimate. I don't have a printer, so I can't do this myself.

This is an OOC jpeg. No in camera sharpening or any other in camera enhancements. All values were set to 0.

Thanks!

 

[fcracer]

Erik, beautiful image! Must look amazing printed with a nice light pointed at it.

 

[Erik Kaffehr]

Erik, beautiful image! Must look amazing printed with a nice light pointed at it.

Yes, I have a very nice A2 size print on my wall.

I did have it hanging at an exhibition. In A2 size.

I do have a larger 'canvas print' hanging at my former workplace, I am in retirement now. That image hangs in a corridor with no so good light :-(.

Best regards

Erik

 

[TMFKAK]

Let's say you want to print an image that you've made with whatever camera you have and if you were to print it at the native resolution, your print would wind up being 180 dpi. Would it be better to resize the print and print it at 360 dpi or leave it at 180 dpi and native resolution?

Thanks

And now we are as «schlau» as before, right?

But what to do? We need to jump to a conclusion.

I would (and will) make it so when I’ll have a lab again (and bought a big printer) after decades in some weeks:

1.: Running my own tests, as in the analog days.

2.: Wasting a lot of paper and ink.

Please see this as a starting point.

No resampling, let the software (driver, RIP, something in between, what ever) do this job for the first and see what happens.

 

[Erik Kaffehr]

Let's say you want to print an image that you've made with whatever camera you have and if you were to print it at the native resolution, your print would wind up being 180 dpi. Would it be better to resize the print and print it at 360 dpi or leave it at 180 dpi and native resolution?

Thanks

Hi,

If you happen to have a 24" 2K monitor, or a 48" 4K monitor you can test your images this way:

• Rescale the image to your print size at 180 PPI.
• Look at the rescaled image at actual pixels.

I have found that works reasonably well for me, at least for large prints.

I would also add that sharpness may be a bit overrated. A trained observer may see differences between prints that a normal viewer may ignore.

Best regards

Erik

 

[fcracer]

I enlarge to the print size and at 300 ppi. I use photozoom pro and it lets me choose between algorithms. I find it much faster than topaz and results are usually the same. The AI enlarger does weird stuff and depending on the image it might not work. Lancizos is usually what I use.

Thanks for the tip on PZ. Gave it a try today and the results look good. Runs much much faster than Gigapixel AI too.

 

[Adam007]

I started selling prints a couple years ago, and the larger the better. My standard landscape image is 40 X 22.5.

I use a 36MP camera, process mostly in LR, and export as TIFFs. All of the prints look great to me. In fact, my largest sold print (51 X 34) was of a 6 MP crop. Looks fantastic. I only use commercial printers.

Is the gist of this discussion that when preparing an image for print, I should resize according to the expected print size? Maybe I just need to do this side-by-side, but I am having difficulty convincing myself that this makes a difference. Choices in papers, etc., seem much more important.

Have I got this all wrong? Can anyone recommend something I can read to understand all this? Thanks.

 

[Erik Kaffehr]

I started selling prints a couple years ago, and the larger the better. My standard landscape image is 40 X 22.5.

I use a 36MP camera, process mostly in LR, and export as TIFFs. All of the prints look great to me. In fact, my largest sold print (51 X 34) was of a 6 MP crop. Looks fantastic. I only use commercial printers.

Is the gist of this discussion that when preparing an image for print, I should resize according to the expected print size? Maybe I just need to do this side-by-side, but I am having difficulty convincing myself that this makes a difference. Choices in papers, etc., seem much more important.

Have I got this all wrong? Can anyone recommend something I can read to understand all this? Thanks.

Hi,

If it works for you, just fine!

If you use a commercial printer, the task is shared between you and the printer.

In my case, I use a printing service that just dumps my image to the printer, so, I am doing all the work.

Where settings matter is where there are edges that the sensor cannot resolve. In those cases you get pixelation or aliasing effects, that may or may not matter. It depends on subject matter.

Also, sharpening can cause halo effects, that further processing may enhance as false detail.

Finally, the printing process also softens the image by blurring fine detail. So for optimal printing the image needs some sharpening to compensate for that and that sharpening is process dependent.

Different subjects may need different amount of detail.

Best regards

Erik

 

[Rob de Loe]

I started selling prints a couple years ago, and the larger the better. My standard landscape image is 40 X 22.5.

I use a 36MP camera, process mostly in LR, and export as TIFFs. All of the prints look great to me. In fact, my largest sold print (51 X 34) was of a 6 MP crop. Looks fantastic. I only use commercial printers.

Is the gist of this discussion that when preparing an image for print, I should resize according to the expected print size? Maybe I just need to do this side-by-side, but I am having difficulty convincing myself that this makes a difference. Choices in papers, etc., seem much more important.

You can decide for yourself. Make some prints that compare how you have been doing it up until now with some alternative approaches. Let your eyes decide.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is to try for one's self. There's a significant element of subjectivity, combined with enormous variability based on files used, paper, inks, printer technology, software, etc. that can't be resolved on an Internet forum.

A personal case in point is the Topaz tool for uprezzing (Gigapixel AI). When it came out there were some very enthusiastic comments. I trialed it to make careful comparisons with my printer, ink, paper, and printer -- Gigapixel versus uprez in Lightroom versus letting Quadtone RIP handle everything. I saw no benefits to Gigapixel AI with my setup. However, others do seem to see benefits -- so clearly one size does not fit all.

Have I got this all wrong? Can anyone recommend something I can read to understand all this? Thanks.

It's getting a bit old now (2013) but I still highly recommend Jeff Schewe's book, The Digital Print. It's still an excellent resource for understanding issues and options. Jeff knows of what he writes.

 

[Adam007]

Thanks, Rob!