Size of pictures

[jonk]

Digital pictures have been around long enough and monitor pixel count increased

enough that older pictures do not fill the screen when seen at actual size. I

find that the smaller pictures often have a different feel than full monitor

size pictures. Reworking them for a higher resolution monitor would not

necessarily improve them.

 

With the popularity of mega-sizing everything, is the aesthetic of the smaller

(intimate) picture in decline or perhaps even considered?

[geoffs1]

<p>Interesting thought. When I'm not constrained by layout or other rules (ex. "No Words" 512 pixel limit), I tend to aim for 800 pixels wide (landscape) as a reasonable compromise that isn't too small on the latest mega-resolution monitors, and still allows some room for browser window stuff on 1024x768 monitors (aside: remember when that was a <b>huge</b> monitor?). I also keep a collection of favorite shots in a screen-saver slide-show on my work monitor. Usually I'll make a special version for that application where the long edge perfectly fills the monitor (currently 1280x960).</p>

<p>I have to admit liking larger images (ex. the full-screen shots in my screen saver), but preparing shots for the "No Words" forum has gotten me to thinking about working with the fairly small size limit imposed there. While I'm not about to switch to making all my on-screen photos 512 pixels wide/high, I'm having some fun trying to tweak my photos to look their best there. In particular, I find I'm forced to rely less on "pop" from brute-force sharpness, instead paying careful attention to color contrast and tonality.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Geoff S.</p>

[don_e]

"...is the aesthetic of the smaller (intimate) picture in decline..."

 

Probably, if you mean a contact print or a digital equivalent. I don't think it is related to computer displays since the tendency has been around since before digital, before photo-capable computers.

 

But, if you consider that the majority of photos are seen by the majority of people as either 6x4 inch prints or as a jpeg in a web browser, discarding the aesthetic of the smaller picture might have been unwise.

 

As for what you see on a mega-sized monitor, how many others will see that, on that crt or that lcd, of that screen size, and at that screen resolution, and calibrated as it is calibrated? No one, most likely unless they are looking over your shoulder. Viewing in a web browser introduces more variables.

 

My digital (and digitized) photographs are either the 13x10" or 14x91/4" images that I see in Lightroom (that size, that color space, that tone curve, that rendition) on one specfic computer display of the seven I own. I analogize it to a transparency on a light table under a loupe. I get to determine what is the photograph because I'm the photographer. With (undigitized) film it is easier: it is the transparency, it is the paper print and its negative. It's a more personal decision with digital files.

 

 

If I have an output in mind and prepare the photo for it, I work on it at the size of the intended output. That may be, for example, a 6x4" print or a 600px wide 100k jpeg for my workspace portfolio. Since a lot of my photos are full of high frequency detail, being shot in the landscape, so that the detail is not evident at those sizes, the aesthetic of the "smaller picture" is something I want to investigate.

[jtk]

I think a good photo is better when it's huge, assuming huge is done well. Billboard size. One of the virtues of digital printing is the ability to print the same file virtually any size, without losing detail the way an optical enlargement would, via interpolation and a good inkjet printer.

 

I don't find "intimacy" with a monitor appealing.

 

Tiny prints from wet darkrooms are usually hints that film's not adequate for bigger printing, or because the photographer lacks an adequate enlarger.

[Norma Desmond]

I have seen many an intentionally small print that seemed to warrant the smaller size either

because of subject matter or emotional appeal. Sometimes framed in a large frame for effect,

sometimes not. True, it is not done that often, but it is done with some frequency. A

photographer with a creative bent and a good esthetic could make the conscious decision to

print smaller for any number of reasons or feelings in his/her gut.

[david_senesac]

When I got my business running and started marketing my images again in 2004, I posted a thread here on photo.net about the larger than normal size of images I would be posting at my website on my image gallery and asked what other's thought about doing so. A number of members here recommended I ought not do so because the images might be thieved. I basically laughed at how anything of XVGA size or smaller is way too puny to use in any way I was interested in seriously protecting. Of course at that time most photographers had image galleries with tiny 480 or 640 pixel maximum dimension images and monitor sizes were more often only 15 or 17 inches. A legacy of the slower network speeds that at the time was rapidly being replaced by services as DSL.

 

I chose to display my website 4x5 images at 7.5% of print size that worked out to be about 860 pixels wide. My reason for doing so was even that modest increase in size has a huge impact in the aesthetic look of many images. Thus you might say I was cheating versus most of my web competition. Since then it has been interesting to see quite a lot of others now using larger sizes of reference images in their galleries too.

 

Some will say a great image will look so regardless of how much it has been downsized. That may be true to some extent but there is a great deal that is valuable to the positive aesthetic of large format images that are simply lost when downsizing and compressing an image greatly. Most of my drum scanned print images for 30x38 inch Lightjet prints have over 8k by 11k pixel dimensions so reducing them to usual monitor sizes changes some image areas so radically the resulting fine detail and textures may end up as simply looking like mottled baby poo. One can certainly critique any image at downsized web dimensions and effectively evaluate a number of parameters. However there are certainly additional parameters related to the nature of finer detail that can only effectively be evaluated by viewing larger prints of the end process. ...David

[twmeyer]

"<i>older pictures do not fill the screen when seen at actual size</i>"<p>What is "actual size"? The size when captured? The size when scanned? At what resolution? At 100%, or at print size? <p>A good photograph is good at any size. Postage stamp or bill board, good design and conceptual tension will work. An image may have a <i>optimal</i> size for the effect the artist wishes to convey within the confines of a particular medium, but if it's well made it will excite the imagination at any size (and its appropriate viewing distance).<p>................<p>Casual photographers have always had trouble understanding the relationship between capture size, image characteristics and the appropriate reproduction & size/viewing distance for any particular medium. The Peter Principle applies to photographic printing, when an image is enlarged to the degree that it looses those qualities it was created to convey.<p>.....................<p>There is a valuable and valued history of contact printing by choice, not because of "inadequate" film or enlargers. And it continues today.<p>.................. <p>I don't think of an image as "finished" if it's only prepared for viewing on a monitor. My point of view in this regard is polar. My commercial images frequently never see ink/paper or C-print incarnation. But the fine art work is output at anything from 5x5inches to a multi-paneled 4x6 feet print construction and also as web display. Just today I picked up 7 16x20s and 6 11x14s, 300 ppi c-prints from a LightJet (I think). Sharp and clear with beautiful smooth gradations. I like the way they look as 72ppi 4x6's on my website, too... t <p>Re: various browsers and un-calibrated monitors: I can remember submitting slides and 4x5 chromes for review and watching some wonk hold them up to his window, which was the analog, 20th Century version of an un-calibrated monitor.

[twmeyer]

David, you were writing as I was writing. <p>Your issues with down rezing LF images is definitely a problem within the world of crappy monitor resolution. There is an optimal size for each image in each medium. An 8x10 72ppi from your 8x10 TXP is certainly inadequate to convey the fine detail it may have. But a platinum/palladium contact print from that same neg might just sing like Ella... t

[Ed_Ingold]

Tom,

<p>

<i>What is "actual size"? The size when captured? The size when scanned? At what resolution? At 100%, or at print size?</i>

<p>

Images are always displayed on a monitor, using a browser or as a screen-saver or wallpaper, on a pixel-per-pixel basis, which is otherwise described as "actual size" in this context. A monitor cannot display any more detail than this. Physical dimensions, other than the pixel count, and resolution are simply tags used by print drivers to create a print of specified dimensions.

<p>

The size and aspect ratio at which images should be print is a matter of aesthetics, intent, style and convention. In another vein, you can charge more for a large print, but perhaps make up in volume for postcards.

[jennifer_durand]

I refer to Joh Kelly's statement :"One of the virtues of digital printing is the ability to print

the

same file virtually any size, without losing detail the way an optical enlargement would, via

interpolation and a good inkjet printer."

 

Whenever a digital file is interpolated or rezzed up detail is lost and the image

deteriorates and artifacts can appear. What software are you on and which printer does the

job for you?

[jtk]

Jennifer, interpolation invents/improvises "logical" details when a file lacks enough to print to an unusually large size. It works with any printer. I don't know what trickery works best online, I'm speaking of prints.

 

Detail isn't lost or degraded by interpolation, it's ADDED with sharply defined forms (like mosaic tiles)to increase impression of smoothness when viewed from a distance. Noise is not an issue.

 

Genuine Fractals is the best-known of these. I've seen astounding billboard-sized inkjet prints of aerial photos from 6X7 (Mamiya 7 Velvia )in museum settings that remained gorgeous right up to actual contact. The interpolation elements were sharply defined color forms, attractive in themselves up close, that vanished at "appropriate" viewing distance.

 

A perfect analogy is pointillism. The dots are beautiful in themselves. eg Georges Seurat.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/seurat/

 

http://www.americaswonderlands.com/digital_photo_interpolation.htm

[jtk]

"I have seen many an intentionally small print that seemed to warrant the smaller size either because of subject matter or emotional appeal. Sometimes framed in a large frame for effect, sometimes not. True, it is not done that often, but it is done with some frequency. A photographer with a creative bent and a good esthetic could make the conscious decision to print smaller for any number of reasons or feelings in his/her gut." Fred Goldsmith.

 

Yes. I was too cynical, didn't mean to reject all miniatures.

 

The truth, however, is that my first response is almost always to want the image bigger. I think big-enlargement potential in a film/file is an important test, but there certainly are cases where miniatures are worthy: I like tintypes and other small, emotional antiques, and 6X9 contact prints can convey preciousness...I sometimes use that format.

 

I remember murals of Avedon's dying father...the humanity of the work, and of course the craft, would have come strongly across in any small size, but to see the man lifesize and larger was profoundly moving.

[Norma Desmond]

Yes, John, years ago there was a show of Avedon's Warhol portraits et al at the Oakland

Museum. Those were huge and incredibly powerful. It was almost like viewing architecture.

[bernie moore]

I remember a college professor of photography saying to his class," If you can't make it good, make it big." He was kidding of course...wasn't he?

[jtk]

He may or may not have been kidding...

 

...but for the most part "college professors of photography" aren't the best photographers...are they? :-)

 

Those that can, do, those that can't...

[Norma Desmond]

What bothers me about that slogan, "Those that can . . . " is that it may be true but

shouldn't be taken as referring to a teacher's shortcomings <i>as a teacher</i>. I have had

many great teachers who weren't great at the skill or art they taught but they sure could

teach and I sure

did learn. I have also heard many a great photographer/musician/artist talk absolute

gibberish about what s/he </>does</i> so well. The main criterion for being a good teacher

is being able to teach well, a very different skill from being able to do well.

[jtk]

Yes. I made a wise-ass comment in response to the similarly wise-ass comment someone's teacher was said to have made.

 

As to size, if a print, whether from 35 or 8X10 film cannot be made effectively to a very large size, I think it's fair to observe that someone failed somewhere, to a degree. Photography is, after all, substantially technical...and that is one of the aspects that always deserves valuation.

 

http://tech.ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/DigitalBW-PrintExchanges/photos/view/d313?b=6

An image in a bronze foundry with a 3.2MP digicam...I kick myself for not having had my Canon rangefinder along, with Acros or Neopan 400. The file almost makes it credibly to 6X9" in a B&W Inkjet print. That represents a significant failure to me because I didn't fully bring my craft to my image. If I'd used film I could have printed it 12X18" and had my own idea of my best work.

[bernie moore]

Fred, I couldn't agree with you more.

[jennifer_durand]

John, if you don't mind me asking do you use GF yourself? I have the latest version and the

results are not as good as I hoped they would be. The best way to get a very large scale

enlargement is to use large format.

 

Size doesn't matter. IMO some images demand 1:1 enlargement and some look better small,

it depends what's appropriate for each image.

[john falkenstine]

I recently saw some square pictures. Rotating them did not change the situation, but made me turn my head at an odd angle. I then turned the picture back upright; nothing had changed, except for a slight cramp in my neck. Now, I ask myself the question, this angst now for the size of a picture; should I go outside and confront the real world, and how large does the world REALLY appear through the windshield of my truck as I drive down the street, can I see MORE now since the windshields of trucks have gotten larger, or should I buy a Volkwagen Beetle so I can better "frame" my images of my surroundings as they drift by; Next to worry about, are the papers around the ice cream cones at Circle K wrapped clockwise or counterclockwise, and should the thermostat on the freezer be set higher when more people are in the store and the freezer door is opened more often. (Is the door CLOSED as often as it is opened?) If you get my drift of the level of importance of the original posting. . . .

[jonk]

Maybe it's due to my (physical) nearsightedness, but a small picture draws me physically closer to it. The ICP had a Kertesz exhibition with many of his early and very small pictures. Being so close to the pictures made me feel more involved with them and made them more memorable.

 

On the other hand, larger than life size pictures force me to stand back and be more aware of the room's (potentially distracting) environment.

 

A light table vs. a projection screen would be another example.

[don_e]

There may be a market for smaller photographs. Sorry to introduce crass commercialism into a discussion of aesthetics, but there are other considerations besides what the photographer likes or dislikes.

 

Perhaps the now generation-long tendency for larger and larger prints misses that opportunity.

[jtk]

Jennifer, I've used GF only in an older version and only the context of Qimage (printer driver)... there are better interpolation applications, even within Qimage, but the GF name serves here for communication purposes. Nonetheless, I've seen spectacular GF murals. Requirements for skill don't go away just because we've got digital technology.

 

I enjoyed 8X10 and I dearly miss 4X5, but for a photograph of substance the image and the technique count for much more than film size. Bruce Davidson's work looks great at any size.

 

Certainly 35mm works wonderfully on billboards... 8X10 looks no better at that viewing distance. Up close, in galleries, the issues shift to prissy photo prejudices (aversion to grain, preference for easy decorative images etc) Vs appreciation of the weight of the image itself. Avedon's old 120 look as good mural-size as his 8X10, whereas some of Ansel's 120 are stronger at same large size than a lot of his 8X10 IMO.

[snakecharmer]

Tom, I have to disagree that a great photo will generally make a great postage stamp. Some really terrific photos succeed partly due to their intricacy of detail. Make the photo smaller and you run into the problem of optical resolution: the eye cannot distinguish one line from the next because they are too close together. The postage stamp of the black and white tree would lose some of its delicate wood grain.

[dead_metaphor]

IMHO, smaller prints (6x9) are much more powerful if matted and framed appropriately I used to exhibit 20x30; I now exhibit the same photos 6x9 in 16x20 matts, and in my opinion are much stronger that way.

 

Bigness often serves as a substitute for creativity.

 

If its not good, make it big. Even better, make it really colorful and big.

 

Tim van der Weert

www.timvanderweert.com