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Large Prints needed

First of all, hello OPF'ers. I am alive and well in the Arizona desert. It has been quite awhile since I last posted anything but I have been around from time to time lurking and looking. Now I am looking for a little advice and information on where and how to get some large prints made for a project I am working on.

I have a training room that has two or three garage doors in it. They are smaller than an actual garage door on a house but have normal garage door openers on them that operate as usual. Now, when the doors are opened, all you see are the bland, ugly walls behind the doors. I am taking photos with my Nikon D3, from inside various, real garages, getting the view that you see when looking outside after the door opens. I need prints made that will measure 46" x 83" so they fit the space behind the doors so that when the door is opened, it looks like you are looking outside. Simple right? Not for me. I have no idea where to even begin. I know these dimensions are probably not ideal for print purposes but I need it as close to these as I can get just so it looks proper.

My D3 is only 12 megapixels but after reading the posting here from Nicolas Claris, I am pretty confident my camera could do a pretty reasonable job with a print that size. I just don't know where to look, how to properly size things, or even the best way to prepare my file for a print like that. Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated. And once again, hello everybody. I will try and not stay away so long next time. I see a lot of new faces around that's for sure.
James
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I am taking photos with my Nikon D3, from inside various, real garages, getting the view that you see when looking outside after the door opens. I need prints made that will measure 46" x 83" so they fit the space behind the doors so that when the door is opened, it looks like you are looking outside. Simple right? Not for me. I have no idea where to even begin. I know these dimensions are probably not ideal for print purposes but I need it as close to these as I can get just so it looks proper.

James,

12 MP can go to A2 size, i.e. 16"x24". Do you have a tripod with a center column and an ability to rotate about a vertical axis? Or do you have a pano head of some kind?

For the first case, just mount your Nikon D3 on a tripod in portrait position and take overlapping pictures at a suitable f stop to get DOF you like, say f5.6. raise the center column and take another row. Each image should be overlapped by 20%. Stitch these in photoshop or autopanogiga or other stitching software or send them to me for stitching if you like.

You should be able to have a large enough file for your needs now. You only need 150 to 200 pixels per inch to make these large prints.

If you use a higher ISO and hand-hold, you can readily do the same, at higher shutter speed, by simply rotating the camera around an imaginary point for each shot in the center of your lens. This works well as long as you don't have anything directly near you within 30 ft. Just cover the view you want to include with a little extra for cropping.

Can you give us a picture of the garage doors in question, closed and then open. Are you just making these prints for the one building and how far is one door from the next. That's why a picture would be helpful. The big question is this. Does one view continue to the next view with a section of wall in between them?

Asher
 

Tom dinning

Registrant*
Hi James
I've got prints on my wall here that are larger than 16 x 24 and they look pretty damn good taken from the D3. As for getting the size you want, I'm sure you will have no probs finding a printer. I use one in Melbourne and another in Brisbane all done on line and delivered in 2-3 days, any size I want, even banners 5 m long. That bullshit about 12mp going to a2 is for the faint at heart who will probably inspect your print with a magnifying glass instead of standing back and admiring your work for a respectable distance as it should.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Just to go through the math.

The D4 has 12.1 MP distributed 4256 x 2832.

150 dpi yields 18.8 X 28.3" in portrait mode. A matrix of 4 x 4 20% overlapping portrait images would be approx 60" X 90", so this is what you should aim for. Printing can be done in any commercial print house.

Alternatively take a picture vertically with a rented 6x9 Fuji rangefinder camera with a wide angle lens. Rental will be peanuts. Then have the film scanned for the size you need. Done!

Samy's Camera rents a Pentax II 6x7 for just $35 a day,55mm wide angle lens is $20, another great choice

Asher
 

Jerome Marot

Well-known member
I need prints made that will measure 46" x 83"

Large format photo printers exist in 44" and 60" (meaning some can accept rolls of paper 44" or 60" in width and can print up to the length of the roll). 46" x 83" is no problem for a 60" machine but will cost noticeably more than 44" x 83".
 

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
The stitching method Asher describes, is a great way to get create a file with maximum resolution for such an enlargement.

If you are not able to or are not wanting to go through that process - very nice big enlargements can be produced, even though the physical file size dimensions when calculated, don't provide for those numbers.

I use four thirds cameras (8MP and 10MP) and tend to crop heavily - and have produced salable 30"x40" prints from them. I always feel that I could easily have gone much bigger if the client had wanted to spend the money for the larger sizes.

So instead of going with the physical dimension divided by the DPI setting needed for good print quality - - - you/I will be uprezing the file. I have used one of two methods for my large prints.

First is to just send the file as you have processed it, and let the lab do the uprezing - depending on the superior RIP technology that they have with their printers (particularly if they are a pro lab).

The other is one that I most often use - - - is a method recommended by Vincent Versace and Scott Kelby. And that is to "Resample" your file in Photohop, using the final print dimensions and a setting of 360DPI and setting the resample algorithm to "Bicubic Sharper" (the opposite of what is recommended). My daughter has a large 36 inch canvas art print where I used this method on a 6MP Nikon D70 image shot at 1600ISO in store window light. It is smooth and flawless and I believe could go to 6 or 8 feet wide.

Everyones taste and mileage will be different depending on how critical you want to be when standing close up.



This is a 30"x40" for a client from a 10MP Olympus E-3 file (I resampled it in PS first) -
12199715597835_30x40.jpg



This is a 30"x40" artistic canvas print for a client from a heavily cropped 10MP Olympus E-3 file (I resampled it in PS first) -
12536553295327_30x40.jpg


Either if these could have gone much bigger I believe. At these sizes they are viewed from 6 feet or more away. A 6 to 8 foot print would be viewed from farther than that even.


To give you an idea of how little (probably 1/2) of my 10MP file was used to make that last 30x40 print - here is the original from camera. It was actually a snapshot that I took while they were all walking to a spot along the river for their portraits. I loved the very unique and loving hand interaction and so made use of the image by cropping out the heads and giving an artistic effect. The client had to have it and have it big to hang over their open staircase -
12536553454172_30x40original.jpg


I would love to have produced a 40x60 or larger to give better evidence on those sizes with my files - - - but I haven't. But I do have many 24x24 and 24x36 and 30x40's where I have been quite pleased as well as my clients. Unfortunately, you will have to fork out the money at least once to find out if you are satisfied with your files printed as large as you want them to be. That is the only way to be sure.



Rob
 
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Thanks for the help!

Once again I am reminded of why I absolutely love this site. It is brimming full of talented and experienced members who are willing to lend a helping hand, especially to someone not so capable like me. I need to spend a little more time re-reading and digesting everything I have received so far and then move ahead. I am going to try and get some images of the site today to better show what I am dealing with. I must say though that so far, I am really leaning towards the easy way, if I can find the right, helpful lab, where I would just send them my image and have them do all of the sizing or uprezing. We will see how it goes. Stay tuned and thank you al so much. Great to be back Asher.
James
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
The stitching method Asher describes, is a great way to get create a file with maximum resolution for such an enlargement.

If you are not able to or are not wanting to go through that process - very nice big enlargements can be produced, even though the physical file size dimensions when calculated, don't provide for those numbers..............

Rob,

Your pictures show very well that if one is viewing the picture from 6ft, (meters), our more, then one can really enlarge surprisingly large and it looks so wonderfully real. It all depends on the method of resampling for enlargement and you are so right that the printer has the RIP software to do it right. Just need a good printer who knows what to do.




@ James,

Of course, if, by chance, your giant pictures are meant to be viewed closely, closer than 100cm, (3ft 4") or even at 25cm, (10"), then pixels and enlargement need to be the best quality.

Still, everything depends on the nature of the picture. An image with faces and smooth transitions or people will show best. Detail rich images might break up more easily. So the best thing to do is to take a snap and have the printer make a test enlargement from a small part of it to show what result you'd get with the entire image. That way, you can print just an 8"x10" portion and pay just a few $ instead of committing to the entire giant print.

Asher
 
The stitching method Asher describes, is a great way to get create a file with maximum resolution for such an enlargement.

Hi James,

I agree with Rob that Asher's description is aimed at maximum resolution. However, given that the viewing distance from the street to the image is quite a bit larger than usual, you can drop the PPI print requirement considerably and produce much larger output that you may think. An 8x10inch output at 12 inches viewing distance will look as sharp at the same print 10x as large and viewed from 120 inches, so a very decent 300 PPI print resolution can then drop to 30 PPI. Any 'excess' resolution will allow closer viewing without loss.

So instead of going with the physical dimension divided by the DPI setting needed for good print quality - - - you/I will be uprezing the file. I have used one of two methods for my large prints.

First is to just send the file as you have processed it, and let the lab do the uprezing - depending on the superior RIP technology that they have with their printers (particularly if they are a pro lab).

I agree, provided that they do use a high quality RIP.

The other is one that I most often use - - - is a method recommended by Vincent Versace and Scott Kelby. And that is to "Resample" your file in Photohop, using the final print dimensions and a setting of 360DPI and setting the resample algorithm to "Bicubic Sharper" (the opposite of what is recommended). My daughter has a large 36 inch canvas art print where I used this method on a 6MP Nikon D70 image shot at 1600ISO in store window light. It is smooth and flawless and I believe could go to 6 or 8 feet wide.

Should you want to do the resampling yourself, I would not favor any of the Photoshop resizing algorithms, they produce suboptimal results. When you want to have a good looking output, without all sorts of blocking and halo artifacts, I recommend Photozoom Pro. I've analysed the output from many different algorithms, and this is one of the few that actually increases (!) the resolution of edges and lines (they don't grow fatter, but stay thin and sharp without jagged edges). It also can add subtle noise to avoid overly smooth featureless areas.

Cheers,
Bart
 

Ben Rubinstein

pro member
Keep in mind that when printing on canvas you can get away with much larger enlargements than on regular paper in my experience. The texture hides the lack of detail.
 
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