DPI and printing

[brian_walton]

Can anybody confirm the following. Most printing is completed at 300dpi

(usually less for large prints). And to obtain fine art digital prints one has

to use a dedicated black and white printer.

 

with thanks

 

Brian

[bobmichaels]

Q1: usually yes.

 

Q2: sometimes no. (RIPs and the Epson 2400 are some of the exceptions)

[beauh44]

Hi Brian, While there's no law that says one must print at 300 dpi a lot of people do. And yes, for larger prints you can usually get by with less dpi because large prints are usually viewed farther away. As for the dedicated B&W printer, that was probably more true in the past than now. Many color printers today (new Epsons and HPs come to mind) print both color & B&W very well. There's a small problem in defining what a "fine art" digital print is; I suspect not everyone may agree with any one definition.

[godfrey]

Utterly unnecessary to print strictly at 300 ppi. That's the somewhat arbitrarily defined and

accepted minimum resolution for presentation grade printing with scanned film, but I find

that digital capture photographs often print just as well at 200ppi or even 180ppi.

 

To make "fine art" grade B&W prints, you need a printer that supports a quadtone inkset.

The Epson R2400, R4800, R7800 and R9800 all use the K3 inkset and can print perfect

B&W right out of the box. The HP 7960, 8450 and 8750 also have a quadtone inkset and

can print beautiful B&W with just a little bit of adjustment. For other printers, you need a

set of QuadTone inks and usually a RIP to get the best quality.

 

Godfrey

[mr._smith]

"Utterly unnecessary to print strictly at 300 ppi... but I find that digital capture photographs often print just as well at 200ppi or even 180ppi."

 

This has been my observation also.

 

"To make "fine art" grade B&W prints, you need a printer that supports a quadtone inkset. The Epson R2400, R4800, R7800 and R9800 all use the K3 inkset and can print perfect B&W right out of the box."

 

One can also use Quad Tone RIP (QTR) for b&w printing with the Epson 2400 and also with the Pro printer series. At $50. it's a bargain. http://www.quadtonerip.com/html/QTRrequire.html

 

The HP Photosmart Pro B9180 A3 printer may be an excellent alternative to b&w printing if one is not confined to using HP brand papers.

[KenPapai]

1. NO (180 DPI prints at 13x19 inches look *astounding* up close). 240 DPI will work superbly for anything A3 or smaller. 180 DPI prints are no slouch either*.

 

2. No, but a top notch Epson will make your B&W prints really shine, start with the R2400 is all you need is a 13x19.

 

* Remember large prints stress top technique, especially sharp lenses and your post processing skills (no different than chemical darkroom work except large digital prints outshine their 35mm counterparts by a mile).<div></div>

[mark_ryan2]

Subject matter can affect it also. Lots of grass, leaves, or things with random patterns, when very small in the picture, will start to lose their distinctness fast I find. Things more geometric and large relative to the picture size fare far better. Besides the obvious advantages, I think our minds fill in the straight lines better if there is a bit of a defect in the print.

 

I set my 2200 to print at 1440dpi with the picture at 288dpi. (Setting the printer to 2880 does make for a better pic, but only when put side-by-side with a 1440dpi print.) People say to use something divisible or a multiple to help the program handle the translation. 200-210dpi works well for larger prints too.

 

YMMV

[scott_eaton]

Side bar:

 

Some labs I work with for Epson 9800 printing insist that files should be upsized for Epson printing before hand at 360dpi, even if this means upsizing in Photoshop. Given that most high end Epsons have similiar driver engines, what say you guys with the 2200's and 2400's? Is this really necessary? My experience with the smaller Epson printers is 200dpi native file rez is quite sufficient, provided the image is sharp.

[mr._smith]

"Some labs I work with for Epson 9800 printing insist that files should be upsized for Epson printing before hand at 360dpi, even if this means upsizing in Photoshop."

 

My experience has been that I've not seen any noticeable difference with Epson destop printers.

 

However, if you need to send a file at 360ppi, here's a method described on another list by a Mr. Boley who says it makes a difference. You be the judge, as I've not tried it.

 

- Upsize (smoother) to 720ppi and apply light unsharp masking between 1 and 100, barely visible on display

- Downsize (sharper) to 360PPI

 

It may make for a huge file size, especially if it's in 16 bits.

[scott_eaton]

I would agree with you. Doesn't explain why West Coast Imaging keeps insisting files be sized to 360dpi though for Epson printing.

[terry_lee10]

Not too long ago, a client wanted a 10 x 15 print but the original resolution wasnﾒt large enough to fit a 10 x 15 print using 300 ppi.

 

So, I decided to test it @ 200 ppi & also at 300 ppi with the Fuji Frontier 370. I gave special instructions to the photo finisher that just print the file as it is and do not do any fancy correction etc. She told that for digital images, they don't do it anyway.

 

One was printed without any upszing that equated to about 200 ppi, while the other was upsized via bicubic method so that it was printed exactly @ 300 ppi.

 

Guess what, I couldnﾒt detect any difference. I even check the image number on the back of the print to ensure that they did print them separately.

 

When the client came to collect it, he couldnﾒt differentiate it either, so he just took one at random.

 

In future, as long the ppi is from 200 ppi upwards, Iﾒll simply print it rather than agonising over the 300ppi standard and get on with my other photography work.

[scott_eaton]

The Frontier is going to upscale the file to 300dpi. Same with LightJets. Neither device uses the same print engine as a high end Epson printer.

 

However, there is still a prevailing mentality that ink-jet printers don't handle upscaling as well as LightJets.

 

I'd hardly classify West Coast Imaging as a 'bureacraucy' either.

[kelly_flanigan1]

It printing it is abit of a burnout sometimes with the jackassery of goofy inputs. Thus some type of guidelines has to be made in the FAQ's order area, to reduce the times wasted with constantly explaining stuff. Yesterday we printed several posters 27x37 inches for customer P, that gave us 300 dpi images, yes they must have upsized them from a sub VGA barbiecam. They didnt follow Beavis and Buttheads wisdom of you cannot polish a turd. Upsizing a 640 pixel image to 11,000 pixels doesnt make Beavis a rocket scientist. Fine art has no meaning, if anything its always lower quality images that out 400dpi maps, and somethmes down on fine art papers that are abit canvas that dont support a sharp image.

[terry_lee10]

Scott, I do a lot of printing with this store and she knows me quite well and she assured me that she will not apply any adjustments whatsoever as I told her I was testing ppi.

 

Well, looks like the Frontier does auto upsizing of which she may not even know it. Anyway, as mentioned before, I will not bother attempting to upsize with the Frontier for 10 x 15 prints when resolution falls short due to cropping etc.

[scott_eaton]

I'm not arguing with you Terry, but agreeing you. For the sake of technical points though I need to be clear that all your files are likely upscaled to 300dpi automatically anyways. The fact you can't see the difference only shows that it's a waste of time to upscale for either LightJet or Frontier printing because of their efficient interpolation algorithms, and hence proves our point. If epson says the newer printers are in the same class, I'll take their word on it. It doesn't explain though why prior Epsons were treated with such caution.

 

The problem is that LightJet and Frontier printers are not inkjets, and don't use the same engines, and are dealing with different physics. InkJet printers have significantly higher native hardware resolutions and don't have the benefit of being diffused as the laser 'sprays' through the paper coating forming nice, smooth tonal transitions. Dye sub printers also print at significantly lower resolutions than high end inkjets, but the images appear smooth. An inkjet printer printing at 200-300 dpi native would look like crap though.

 

I should also add that there is a difference between one of my local labs using a 200dpi Lambda and different lab using a 300dpi LightJet. More detail with the LightJet, and you don't have to squint to see it.

[dave_powell2]

"Utterly unnecessary to print strictly at 300 ppi... but I find that digital capture photographs often print just as well at 200ppi or even 180ppi."

 

I second (or third) this as well...with a proviso! It's quite true, if you are printing on your own equipment. I rarely notice significant differences between prints done from 200 to 300 dpi (except for the fact that the 300-dpi prints use a lot more ink!). But if an outside lab is printing the image, they may want your files to be sized to a standard paper size at 300 dpi.