 Jennifer H. White |
Printing Large Photos How do you know if a photo has good enough quality to print a large photo?
|
|
|
|
||
|
robert G. Fately |
Well, this is a pretty subjective question - what is "good enough quality", anyway? That said, if you're just talking about sharpness - you could enlarge the entire image and then just crop out a section of two to a 4x6 size and get them printed. This way you can see just how sharp those portions are, and by extension how sharp the entire image is.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Jennifer H. White |
"Good enough quality" means you'll get what you see on your screen on your print. The point is that I don't want to waste expensive paper if it's not going to print as clear as I see it.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Suzzy |
What do you mean by "large"? I have an Epson 9500 that prints up to 44" wide - are you talking in that range - or do you mean 8 x 10?
|
|
|
|
||
|
robert G. Fately |
Jennifer, you should first know that your screen has a limited resolution of about 75 pixels per inch (give or take, depending on brand and type), while a printer prints at somewhere around 300 dots per inch (plus or minus, depending on the type and model of printer). Also, monitors are RGB and emmissive - that means they put out light - while prints are CYMK and subtractive, which means that the combination of Cyan, Yellow and Magenta inks absorbs light being reflected off the surface of the white paper to leave the pretty orange color that you see. What all THAT means is that a)unless you do color calibration dances and tune your equipment accordingly, and make sure to use consistent ink and paper combinations (because changing either will change the colors too) AND b) you realize that details that may be lost on a screen can appear on a print (due to the higher resolution I mentioned), you may end up disappointed. A lot. So, again - may I suggest that you enlarge the image in question in your computer to a 40x60 inch size (or whatever you define as large) - then cut out (electronically) small 4x6 sections where the colors and/or details are particularly important and print them on the same a similar printer. This will reduce wasted paper, and give you the final story.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Craig m. Zacarelli |
i shoot in raw, then after I PS the image, I will usually make a 4x6 copy in Jpeg mode to print for my album. if I decide to get one done on line (Mpix.com) I will figure out what size I want....say 8 x 10, then I will open up the edited raw file, re size it, make any adjustments, color, sharpness.etc..make sure it looks great on my moniter then resize it to the size print I want, (8x10) then make sure its resolution is 300 DPI and send it in to the printer...I havent been dissapointed yet! Had allot done this way with great results thus far! Craig-
|
|
|
|
||
|
Chuck Sanchez |
I enlarge photos all the time. It's part of my business. I use interpolation programs, mainly Genuine Fractals. I have found that a 5x7 at 300 dpi can pretty much go to as large as a 24x36 and still retain a great amount of clarity. An 8x10 at 300 dpi can go as large as 36x48 and probably larger. I have also scanned negatives and photos and have found that going over 16x20 is risky. A good amount of information is lost. Just make sure you do you scans at the highest dpi at 100% of the size and then change the dpi in photoshop and let the picture resize itself. Chuck
|
|
|
|
||
|
BetterPhoto Member |
Also, you might try making your print and then looking at it on a light box or in front of a light source through a viewing loupe. A common magnification in a loupe is 8x so you can see what the resolution might be at 8x the size of what you printed. Chris Walrath
|
|
|
|
||
|
A C |
I have asked a similar question before and a few people told me that viewing distance is something you can factor in. In other words, the tiny details that may be lost when you enlarge a picture won't be missed if you hang the picture up in your living room, like over your couch. You will have a few feet between you and the portrait. I have the Canon Digital Rebel 300D and I took a family picture at the full 6.3 megapixels. That meant that I could only get around an 8x10 at 300 dpi. I resized it in photoshop (using bicubic smoother under Image>Image Size) to a 16x20 and it looks great above my couch.
|
|
|
|
||
|
x |
not sure what you mean by large, but anything larger than about 11x14, I let the lab resize because they have a better method for doing that. so in other words, I don't do anything. I just give the full file, as is, to the lab, and let them resize for me. works beautifully.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Margie Hurwich |
Jennifer, I just read Bryan Peterson's Understanding Digital Photography book. At the very end there is a tip. It reads "To figure out the largest print size (in inches) your digital camera can generate while still maintaining the highest quality, divide your camera's vertical and horizontal pixel counts (found in the owner's manual) by 200. For example, the pixel count of my Nikon D2X is 4288 x 2848. So, each number divided by 200, I get a maximum print size of roughly 21 x 14 inches." I calculated my Canon Rebel XT and can get about 11 x 14. I hope this helps. Good luck.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Christopher A. Vedros |
I agree with Andy. I never resize or interpolate any of my images, and my prints come out great. The only preparation I do is if I'm enlarging to 8x10 or any other aspect ratio that doesn't match the original 2:3, I will crop it to the print aspect ratio myself, so I know exactly what I will get.
|
|
|
|
||
|
robert G. Fately |
Chris and Andy - the "send it to the lab and let them worry about it" response does not answer Jennifer's question - if you send the lab a crummy original RAW file, you'll get a crummy big print back. Margie, that rule of thumb can be tempered quite well with upsizing. Digial images, even moreso that digitized scans of film images, are quite receptive to upsizing. So "doing the math" does not really imply an upper limit. Your D2X is technically capable of producing poster sized output (assuming the image is sharp, well exposed, etc.) - by upsizing the RAW image (even JPEGs sometimes) either in Photoshop (preferably 10% at a time) or using specific upsizing software like Genuine Fractals. So do not think that just because 4000 divided by 200 equals twenty, you are limited to a 20" image size. Jennifer, everyone's attempt to help you do not answer your question, which, when I asked you to define what you meant, was ""Good enough quality" means you'll get what you see on your screen on your print." The answer to your question has two components - color accuracy (do the colors in the printed and screen images match?), the other is grain/noise related, as in, "if I blow this up big, will the details look pixellated or grainy"? The only answer to issue 1 is to do color profiling - that is, give the computer the cross-matching tables so it knows that when you see a certain shade of orange on screen, it needs to convert that RGB pixel to the appropriate CYMK value that will create a matching orange on the paper. And, again, each printer/paper/ink combination has it's own profole. The asnwer to issue 2 is to just check - since you don't want to waste paper, my suggestion holds - make the enlargement to poster size, and save the file. Then cut out a small 4x6" sized portion and print just that - don't resize or anythin - and you will get a sense of whether the enlarged image is sharp or good looking enough for you. If the shot is of a person or animal, select a portion of the image where you see the eyes or eyelashes or hair - these can be good indices of sharpness. And, as was ponted out here - viewing distance is a part of the decision. Few poster-sized prints are viewed from 12 inches away - you stand back to see the whole thing. So, likewise, stand back from that 4X6 to get an idea of what it will look like for real.
|
|
|
|
||
|
John G. Clifford Jr |
If I'm concerned about sharpness, I look at the picture at 100% in my photo editing program, and if it looks sharp in all the right places, then I have a good place to start. Re interpolation/up-rezzing, I always up-rez my prints so that they have the desired pixel density (dpi) at the size I want. For instance, if I want to print a 16" x 20", then I'll up-rez my image to give me a 16" x 20" print @ 360 dpi (the native resolution of my printer). I always do up-rezzing/interpolation myself, because I KNOW my photo editing program (PWP) will do a better job than the print driver (I've experimented to prove this advice I was given by others). I have found that, depending on the subject, I can up-rez to at least 200% size and often to 250% or more and still have a great-looking print. The print will look better than the on-screen image. So, with my print up-rezzed and the dpi set to give me the desired print size at the dpi setting I want, the last thing I do is sharpen. I have found that when the image looks slightly oversharpened on the screen it looks great on paper, so I sharpen it until it looks great and then put just a little more sharpening (I mainly use USM). A quick way that I have found to check the sharpening is to view the image at 50% after sharpening and if it looks great then it will print great. Then I print it. When I want to print a really large file but I'm not sure how it's going to look, and I don't want to waste a big piece of paper or a lot of inkjet ink, I'll do everything as above, but then I'll take the resultant image and pull a 4" x 6" crop out of it. I'll then just print that crop, at 4" x 6", at the dpi setting I want, and if it looks good then I know the large print will look just as good. So... to summarize: • large prints need to be sharp and in focus (or deliberately blurred, as with a PS action or filter), Does this answer your questions?
|
|
|
|
||
|
Craig Paulsen |
Bob, I apologize for throwing you in with Jerry, Andy and the Dr. But I'm sure you didn't care. I let my editor take care of all that stuff, so I don't know jack. I have been asked to leave a little room on around the edges for croping to certain sizes. No wonder the old timers don't want change, too confusing.
|
|
|
|
||
|
Christopher A. Vedros |
If you don't know jack, why post a comment?
|
|
|
|
||
|
x |
It can't even keep track of it's self.
|
|
|
|
||
|
This old forum is now archived. Use improved Forum here
Report this Thread |
||