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  1. #1
    light wait photophorous's Avatar
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    Printing Digital Landscapes

    What is the recommended dpi/ppi for printing digital photos of intricately detailed subject matter such as landscapes? People often leave subject matter considerations out of these discussions, but I think it is relevant. I'm expecting presentation quality prints that can be viewed at close distance. Does anyone have experience in this area? How low can you go before the loss of detail is perceptible? I know 300 is the recommended standard, but people often say they can print at 240 or sometimes less. How does this apply to landscapes?

    Thanks for your help.

    Paul

    Edit: I just realized this may be in the wrong forum. I put it here because I'm trying to decide if the current crop of DSLRs is enough to make prints I'll be happy with, but feel free to move this to another forum if you think it's appropriate. Thanks.
    Last edited by photophorous; 07-30-2008 at 09:36 AM.

  2. #2
    May the force be with you Canuck935's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    How large do you want to print?

    300ppi is plenty for ultra close inspection without perceiving any loss in detail. The thing is, when you start printing larger, the acceptable viewing distance changes. You wouldn't view a 20x30 print from 10 inches away would you? You could totally get away with 240ppi and nobody would perceive loss of detail unless they were inspecting it at such a close range.

    You have nothing to worry about if you want to make prints from any current DSLR.

  3. #3
    light wait photophorous's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    How large? I want 12x18 prints that are indistinguishable from 6x7 medium format, viewing them at 10 inches. Bigger would be better.

    I don't think the viewing distances change much until you get to about 20x30 or bigger. At 12x18 or 16x24, I would expect someone to view it from a few feet away, and then lean in to look at the details, especially with landscape photos. People are used to looking at all the fine details of big prints from the masters, and that's what the rest of us are compared to. I know I would need large format to compete with really big prints, but I want to know how big I can go before the difference (in detail rendition) becomes noticeable. Know what I mean?

    Thanks!

    Paul

  4. #4
    drg
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    la recherche de trolls drg's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Inkjet printing??

    B/W or color??

    Are you starting with a 6x7 (2 1/4 x 2 1/2) format or digital (dslr) image??

    I start on Epsons at 250dpi for color (save a little ink too) and see how it looks. Print a small critical section of the larger photo but at the same resolution, in other words a crop to see what works best on the paper you are using. Metallics I feel print better at slightly lower resolution or expanded (not enlarged, it is a RIP function that moves the dots/pixels apart slightly like halftoning) presentation.

    B/W I try to print at the same 300 dpi I edit at to most closely match what I've worked with previously. My printed B/W stay more consistent that way. If I need to scale the Image I let the printer or a post Photoshop RPI do it to best match the printer needs unless I've got a really good driver for a known printer. With 10x loupe I can sometimes see a difference between 275/300/330 dpi, but not very often.

    If I have made a photo with a 4x5 (film) then I can make a bigger image with less work, but the grain has to be accounted for if it gets to enlarged or scaled. Scaling will sometimes leave blobs on the image in unexpected places as a result of the algorithm used to generate the exact data needed.

    Test prints are the key! Try creating a file that contains multiple sizes and resolution of crops/critical sections at various scales/dpi and printing them on one sheet of paper and then look under the approximate lighting the final images will be displayed. Prints are one place where you ultimately have to trust your eyes as to what really works.
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  5. #5
    May the force be with you Canuck935's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Well a 12mp image will give you a 12x18 at approx 240ppi.

    You can also reasonably upsize images if you do want higher ppi. Photoshop can do it, or programs like genuine fractals do even better. Honestly, I doubt you'd see much (if any) difference between 240ppi or 300ppi. You'd have to look really hard. I've never compared it side by side though so I can't say for sure.

    Another option is to stitch. You could make insanely large images by using a pano head and a stitching program. You could blow any and all medium/large format camera's out of the water with this method. Of course, this only works for stationary objects and takes a lot more time to set up.

  6. #6
    Senior Member Medley's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Canuck is definitely on the right track. One of the biggest factors in print resolution is the distance from viewer to print. the farther away one is from the print, the lower the dpi can be to provide the illusion of continuous tone. So you have to imagine the print at the size you want, and figure out what distance you would view it from: Would you be inclined to stand back, to get the whole effect, or would you prefer to move in to examine detail?

    To me, the 300/240 dpi debate enters a grey zone. Every printer has a 'native resolution' that it prints at under normal circumstances. Far the the advertised maximum resolution of a printer, the native resolution is define as that resolution where sharpening halos are passed through to the print without being resized. For example, a 300 dpi digital image sharpened with a 6 pixel halo would produce halos that were 1/50th of an inch at a printers native resolution. If the printer has to resize the image to it's native resolution, the halos would be larger or smaller.

    As it turns out, the native resolution of most printers is at or about 300 dpi. Epson printers are the exception, with the native resolution coming in around 360 dpi. Now, as a general rule (no flaming please ) a printer's sizing algorithm has an easier time resizing the image if it is a harmonic of it's native resolution. This translates into a better print (again, as a general rule. This can vary from image to image).

    So for most printers out there, a resolution of 150 dpi is good, 200 dpi is better, and 300 dpi is best. However, for an Epson, those numbers would be 180 dpi, 240 dpi, and 360 dpi respectively. So in my experience, it takes an expertly trained eye to tell the difference between an Epson 240 dpi print, and a 300 dpi print on any other machine. However, if you take, say a Canon printer and produce the same print at 200, 240, and 300 dpi, you may be able to tell the difference between 240 and 300 dpi, and in some cases the 200 dpi print will actually look better than the 240 dpi print.

    Admittedly, this works the other way nearly as often as not, but it works out this way often enough to be seriously considered. So yeah, grey area.

    What I normally do for my large prints where resolution is a factor is to print 3 or 4 5x7 croppings of the print at various resolutions. I generally pick the areas with the highest detail to print. Then using craft or butcher paper, I make an actual size "template" of the print at put it on the wall, drawing rudimentary lines where the major objects would be. then I hang or tape the prints to the template, and decide where I would view the image from.

    It's not rocket science, but it gives me a good idea of what resolution I want to use, for the price of a few 39 cent 5x7's. Sometimes, I even splurge and go for $1.49 8x10's, if the piece is important enough.

    - Joe U.
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  7. #7
    light wait photophorous's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Thank you all for your replies. Just to be clear, I'm not interested in uprezing or making posters. I'm talking about maximum print quality; something you would feel proud to hang in a gallery next to medium and large format photos, where people are going to lean in and inspect every little detail from inches away. The clean and sharp nature of digital photos allow this comparison to go favorably up to a point. Once you run out of information, if you keep enlarging the photo, the lack of detail will begin to show. I'm just trying to figure out where that point is, specifically with highly detailed landscape subject matter.

    It sounds like 300 DPI is ideal and 240/250 is only very slightly less detailed. So, a 12 x 18 print from a 12MP DSLR will probably look pretty darn nice, even up close, but going larger will just depend on the characteristics of each individual shot. Am I on the right track?

    Paul

  8. #8
    Senior Member Medley's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    You have the basics, I think. Just understand that the size and resolution of the print you want determines the size of the digital image. The difference is wether you are controlling the resizing, or if it's the printer doing the work.

    Look at it this way: The images from my Rebel XT come out of the camera at 3456x2304 pixels. If I tell the printer I want a 5x7 print, then the printer is going to lay down ink at 1500 by 2100 dots (assuming a native resolution of 300 dpi). To do so, it's going to use an image with those same dimensions. If that means making the image sent to the printer smaller or larger, then the printer will make that adjustment.

    So if I understand your question correctly, then the answer is to take the pixel dimensions of your image and divide them by 300 (or 360 for an Epson). That will give you the maximum size, in inches, that a print can be before you start sacrificing quality. Anything larger, and the print will be enlarged, either by you or by the printer.

    That's where your point is at.

    - Joe U.
    I have no intention of tiptoeing through life only to arrive safely at death.

  9. #9
    The Polariser fx101's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Native resolution. That's what you want to print at. Just be sure to remember that ppi and dpi are not the same thing. Inkjets are not continuous tone printers. That is to say, that they form the image using multicoloured dots. These dots are the ones referred to in ppi. The apparent resolution (when these dots are paired) is dpi. Generally 300dpi is what Epson's print at. You'll want to print at 300dpi so use genuine fractals if nescessary. Your image quality won't increase, but it won't be degraded by printing at a non-native resolution.

    You might consider lightjet printing. The continous tone print produces what a 4000dpi inkjet printer could produce. More importantly (since the resolution difference isn't the biggest difference) you can expose to real photographic paper. This mean the emulsion is under the glossy surface so you get real glossy prints unlike the bronzing (ink reflection) found on inkjet prints. If you're printing B+W then inkjet printing gives you fibre papers though.
    --The camera's role is not to interfere with the photographer's work--

    --Cibachrome: It's like printing on gold.

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  10. #10
    Senior Member Medley's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    No. Native resolution is the resolution that the inkjet is going to print at, wether you want it to or not. If I send an 8mp image to a printer, and tell it I want a 5x7 and a 16x20, it will create both prints. To do so, it will resize the image to meet it's standards. it will reduce the image size to print the 5x7, and enlarge the image (in the same manner as genuine Fractals- though not necessarily using the same method) to create the 16x20. but it will create both prints. The 'standards' that the printer is using to resize the image is its native resolution. The largest difference in resizing the images on the computer vs letting the printer do it, aside from controlling the method of enlargement, is the effect it has on sharpening. If you resize an image on the computer, then sharpen the image, you retain much more control over the final image than if you sharpen the image, then let the printer resize it.

    The book "Real World Image Sharpening" by Bruce Fraser undoubtedly does a much better job of explaining this, and I'll be the first to admit that it took me a long time to get my head around the concept. However skeptical I was (and I was PLENTY skeptical), the first few prints using the new method changed my mind. It even covers different techniques for continuous tone printers, offset printers, and others. In fact, that's one of the main tenets of the book- that the output process must be taken into consideration in the sharpening technique. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to take their sharpening techniques from Good to Spot On.

    - Joe U.
    I have no intention of tiptoeing through life only to arrive safely at death.

  11. #11
    light wait photophorous's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Thanks again for all the information. I went and read some more about DPI, PPI, and inkjet printing and I think I understand this discussion a little better now. But, what I really need to do is get a sample image and make some prints. That's my next step.

    Paul

  12. #12
    The Polariser fx101's Avatar
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    Re: Printing Digital Landscapes

    Quote Originally Posted by Medley
    No. Native resolution is the resolution that the inkjet is going to print at, wether you want it to or not. If I send an 8mp image to a printer, and tell it I want a 5x7 and a 16x20, it will create both prints. To do so, it will resize the image to meet it's standards. it will reduce the image size to print the 5x7, and enlarge the image (in the same manner as genuine Fractals- though not necessarily using the same method) to create the 16x20. but it will create both prints. The 'standards' that the printer is using to resize the image is its native resolution. The largest difference in resizing the images on the computer vs letting the printer do it, aside from controlling the method of enlargement, is the effect it has on sharpening. If you resize an image on the computer, then sharpen the image, you retain much more control over the final image than if you sharpen the image, then let the printer resize it.

    The book "Real World Image Sharpening" by Bruce Fraser undoubtedly does a much better job of explaining this, and I'll be the first to admit that it took me a long time to get my head around the concept. However skeptical I was (and I was PLENTY skeptical), the first few prints using the new method changed my mind. It even covers different techniques for continuous tone printers, offset printers, and others. In fact, that's one of the main tenets of the book- that the output process must be taken into consideration in the sharpening technique. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to take their sharpening techniques from Good to Spot On.

    - Joe U.
    What I was referring to is the dpi of the image that you feed your printer. The printer will use bicubic interpolation to scale up your image. This causes blocking and blurring due to the interpolation radius of the approach (or at least Photoshop CS3's Bicubic feature). Genuine Fractals uses an adaptive technique using fractals (wonder why they call it Genuine Fractals?) that preserves the shapes in your image and empasizes these rather than individual pixels. This is why you get clearer upscaled images.
    --The camera's role is not to interfere with the photographer's work--

    --Cibachrome: It's like printing on gold.

    --Edit my photos as part of your commentary if you want to.--

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