I have a customer that's wanting a 72x55" print - well, they actually want a 72x220" print but in 4 panels. I'm working with a 12.8 mp camera - the largest print I've made to date was 32x48". So this is going to be quite a stretch (pun intended!). The 32x48" print looked terrific - great details and no pixelation. I used ACR and Photoshop to interpolate for that print.

The plus for this job - the image is an abstract so there won't be any defined shapes like a person, trees, or whatever that would have to remain sharp. But I would like a second opinion on whether this would be doable. Would one of the interpolation programs be worth looking at - or is Photoshop and ACR still considered to do as good a job (or better) than third party plug-ins?

Would it be better to go to a mid-size print - say 40x52; and then get a drum scan done before enlarging further? The printer wants the file sized to 72x55 at 200dpi.

Any advice or thoughts appreciated. I'm a bit hesitant to say yes at this point simply because it's venturing into uncharted territory for me as far as sizing goes.

I've had even larger murals (up to 20') printed from my 12mp camera files by Duggal in NYC, they have their own uprezzing software and we've been very happy with the results. Depending on your scene and client's requirements I'd say that your 40 x 52 is very doable.

david

Thanks, for this project I need to make the file print ready - meaning I have to do the interpolation / uprezzing myself. Any idea what software Duggal's are using?

Cheers

There was an article by Jeff Schewe in a photo magazine called "The Art Of The Uprez". I saw a 40x60 Lightjet print shot with a 5D that was uprezed using his method and it looked great.

It went something like this using Photokit Sharpener as part of the workflow: Uprez your file to the size you want using bicubic smoother in photoshop's image size... then in Photokit Sharpener apply a Super Sharpener 1 and a Super Sharpener 2 and then a Super Grain 200 and then an output sharpening.

Here is the link to Jeff's article.


Art of the uprez

I asked but they said that its their own propriety software, sorry. I could recommend Genuine Fractals if the print was only 72x55", not a problem but I'm not sure about blowing up the file to 72x220".

david

Thanks for your replies. I had actually already read the Schewe article.



I'll have four images that are 72x55" which will be placed together for a panel sized 72x220". Each print needs to fit together though, so there's a bit of thinking involved as to how best to capture the images and make sure they'll fit together perfectly. Ideally I'd like to work with one image at the native resolution, and then split into the four parts and enlarge from there.

Has anyone tried Fred Miranda's SI Pro 2.5 Plug-In and know how it would compare to Genuine Fractuals?

Why 200dpi? What's the viewing distance? Taking into account its an abstract w/o any well defined detail, I'd question the need for 200dpi.

A colleague of mine is going through the same thing (ie; wall sized print requested at 200dpi). He printed a crop of his image at the camera's native resolution (Canon 1DS Mk II w/ Cambo X2 mounted MF lens) to the full size requested and it held up extremely well even at a viewing distance of 2-3 feet. The normal viewing distance of this wall sized print will be more like 10-15' at the closest. The printed crop (with lots and lots of detail) looked perfectly fine at those distances.

I shot a scene for a TV background (think, NYC skyline through Letterman's "window") w/ my ~13mp 5D last year. It was printed to a size of 113" x 60" at 50dpi. The native 5D file (after cropping) at those physical dimensions was ~30dpi IIRC. I uprezzed to 50dpi using pshop's bicubic smoother in 3 steps (not sure if the separate steps are even necessary anymore). The results were more than enough for the viewing distance. Sure, if you put your nose on the print the image would break down in the detail areas but who's going to do that ?

Thanks for the link to Jeff's article. I always wonder when I read these things if the author's own methods have changed with the new versions of software. This article refers to CS2 and ACR 3.1 and I'm sure it still works great, but I'm curious if Jeff already has new way...

Nope...if I NEED to upsample, I still do it that way. Course I use the Camera Raw/Lightroom capture sharpening now but still use Super Sharpener and add photo grain after upsampling. Easy to upsample 200%. You gotta have a real good technical shot (now camera shake, low noise well exposed) to take something up 400%, but it can be done.

There's a lot of variation in capture quality for 12mp cameras. A good DSLR with a good lens should be fine. A digicam, even one as good as a G9, may be more challenging. All a matter of what is acceptable detail from what is the closest expected viewing distance. A photo at 20dpi looks pretty good on a billboard from a road.

I would carefully capture the scene in several vertical slices (sounds like you are sort of doing that anyway), and stitch them together into a single image. Guessing you would need five images with about 20% overlap .. this would yield a file equivalent to about a 40-50mp camera. Once you are finished with this master image, up-rez, sharpen appropriately, then divide that into four equal images for printing ... they will fit together perfectly.

It sounds like this will require around a 400% uprez, certainly possible, especially if there isn't any fine detail.

As far as what tool to use to up-rez, I'm doubtful that you would gain any big advantage using any of the specialty products such as Genuine Fractals. They always show examples of how much better they can do, but the fact is you can't make detail out of nothing, and photoshop is more than adequate if used correctly. I have Genuine Fractals and quit using it some time ago ... just couldn't see any difference in the final print.

The 200dpi requirement is a little puzzling. A good inkjet printer run by a high end RIP will often deliver a higher quality image when up-rezzing because it combines the enlarging process with the dithering process. This wouldn't apply to a RGB photo printer, such as a lightjet or Chromira, but I'm not familiar with any printers of this type that are only 200dpi.

Good luck. Sounds like a fun project.

Thanks for all the replies. Good stuff!

The project will be an installation in a public space, so the viewing distance will be variable. I'm not sure why the 200dpi either - but that's what they asked for so that's what I want to deliver. I do know this is being printed on plexiglass but don't know the printing process.