Printing sizes for selling?

[theymademedoit]

Hi,

I wonder if someone can give me some help with sizing images for printing to sell.

Hi have a Nikon D70 (6mp) and I have been asked what size I can make them at

best resolution (printing done through Photobox).

Is it a case of opening the image in photoshop, keeping the resolution at 300

and then resizing to suit the size the person wants it to be?

If so what sort of size could I go up to?

Sorry but I am confused!

 

I am starting to sell a few but want to provide the best quality res at decent

sizes if that makes sense?

Regards,

Alan

[cherubinphotography]

I have printed to 13x19 with my 6mp and been happy with the results.

[tonybynum]

If you nailed the exposure and it's sharp, you can go big with it. I've got two 40" prints on my wall from a 4.2 mp d2h, and have published many images with the d70. I used qimage to upsize them. . .

 

If the images is not sharp, has really high noise or is not exposed properly you should not go beyond 13x19. . . this is only my opinion.

[geoff_foale]

I have printed 6mp photos for sale at 12 x 18 ins but it must be a good quality original and not all images will resize well. But, usually, people will look at these larger prints from further away so you can sometimes get away with a tiny bit of reduced sharpness. For general use I like to stay around 12 x 8.

 

If you are resizing upwards set the quality control to Bicubic Interpolation (or maximum quality). If you are increasing by more than 50% do it in 2 or more stages not one big jump. After resizing you may need a litle extra Unsharp Mask, but don't overdo it.

 

If a considerable increase is required and I am doing my own printing I would sooner reduce the resolution than overdo the resize; but not less than 200ppi. It also depends on the type of image and grade of paper.

[victor chalfant]

When you resize the photos, don't leave the resolution at 300. I tend to have better luck if the resolution adjusts with the image. Then you don't have any interpolation. I can usually get good quality prints as long as the dpi doesn't go below 150 or so.

[scott_turner]

<p><i>"I tend to have better luck if the resolution adjusts with the image. Then you don't have any interpolation."</i></p>

 

<p>If you're making prints, be it from an inkjet at home or from a commercial printer, your print WILL be upsized using some interpolation method if it doesn't match the native input resolution of the printing device. It has to be. The question is, would you rather have your [printer driver/print vendor/RIP/whatever] do the interpolation for you, or would you rather manage the process yourself?</p>

 

<p>Interpolation of a photograph is, in part, a subjective thing, and it's been demonstrated to me over and over again that no one method gives the most pleasing results for every image. That's why I'd rather manage the process myself with a toolbox of upsampling techniques, rather than leave to a driver somewhere.</p>

 

<p>How big you can go is also highly subjective and variable. Others have mentioned technical details (how sharp, what ISO and so forth), and personal standards, of course, play a role, but people often forget about subject. A simple portrait shot against a soft background can be pushed to limits you wouldn't dream of with, say, a detailed landscape image. For a landscape image, 13x19 from 6MP is well past my comfort level, for example, no matter how well-shot.</p>

 

<p>If you're going to be selling your work, you need to decide for yourself on an individual basis how large you're comfortable printing. So, the best answer is really - make some test prints and evaluate the results relative to the quality level YOU demand of yourself. This need not be expensive, as you can upsize to fairly large print sizes and then crop samples from these test images to smaller sizes (say 4x6) for printing and then evaluate the results.</p>

 

<p>Scott</p>

[dave_redmann]

<I>what size I can make them at best resolution</I><P>

 

Well, <I>best</I> is the tricky word. I think you really mean either "good" or maybe "good enough". I'll address each in turn.<P>

 

<U>Best</U>: regular DSLR's like the Nikon D70 only deliver linear resolutions about 75-80% of what their pixel counts suggest, to the <I>real, true, effective</I> resolution of the D70, assuming good lenses and good technique (tripod etc.), can only be about 1600 lines by 2400 lines. Most common printers run 254, 300, 360, or 400 ppi, natively (and I would submit that anything over 400 is likely to exceed the limits of normal human vision at any semi-normal viewing distance). So if you scale down the picture using an appropriate method that preserves all of the true resolution, then you will maximize the picture detail at print sizes between 4x6 and 6.3 x 9.4 inches, depending on the printer. Yikes!<P>

 

<U>Good or good enough</U>: But I would submit to you that <I>much</I> larger prints can be made with a D70, depending on the subject (how much fine detail does it contain?), the photographer's technique (hand-held versus tripod etc.), the lens quality, and the viewer's subjective quality standards.<P>

 

How much larger? In my experience <I>and opinion</I>, you start to see real quality loss when the original image contains fewer than 200 ppi for the print; in other words, up to 10 x 15 inches, I think the D70 can look fine. Above that, it gets more questionable, with some progressive degradation of image quality. However, I've gotten 24x30 inch prints from a 6 MP DSLR that looked pretty good to me at normal viewing distances for that print size. Experiment and see.

[scott_turner]

Dave, I think you and I are in agreement in the main, but I would quibble with you on two specific points.

 

I know that most people are uncomfortable with ambiguity and naturally crave "an answer", but this is one of those areas where there is no non-subjective answer once you move much beyond the point where the native resolution of the original image is lower than the native input resolution of the print device. There're simply too many variables to go past the general statement that most good dSLRs tend to uprez beyond native resolutions relatively well, contingent upon subject and technical details. I know you attached a qualifier of "in my experience and opinion" to the size you give, but... You can't get around the fact that you need to try things and see to get a feel for what YOUR specific work will allow.

 

My second quibble has to do with the statement: "depending on the subject (how much fine detail does it contain?)". The amount of fine detail is no more important than is the KIND of fine detail.

 

When Michael Reichmann did his, now infamous, comparison between prints made with scanned Provia and a 3MP D30, the one thing no one seemed to notice was that, while his example did contain some fine detail, it was mostly regular and repetitive in nature. This kind of fine detail lends itself very well to most forms of interpolation. If it's beyond the threshold of the anti-aliasing filter, you don't miss it (up to a point), and if it's just below, it interpolates in a believable fashion.

 

I used the example of a landscape image as being less likely to uprez well because most landscape images not only contain a good bit of fine detail, but that fine detail tends to be very random and irregular in nature. When uprezzed it begins to "look digital" in the worst sense of the word - artificial would be, perhaps, a better way of putting it - very quickly, as interpolated "detail" fills in in too regular and even a manner, not revealing the expected additional quasi-random detail.

 

Few things look worse than overly enlarged digitally captured landscapes, and it doesn't take all that much interpolating to get them to look that way.

 

Scott