Printing Big(ish)

Phil1974

Phil1974

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Hi Guys,
Need some advice about printing as I've never had any of my stuff printed before and it's about time!
So, I have a shot in RAW that measures 3385x3264 that I want to print about 600x600mm (30x30 inch). Does this sound a reasonable file size to get a good print?
Also, when I export to jpeg to get it printed the file drops from around 14mb to 8mb. I know jpeg compresses but does this affect printing and if so how can I export at the original size?

Thanks.
 
Phil1974 said:
I have a shot in RAW that measures 3385x3264 that I want to print about 600x600mm (30x30 inch). Does this sound a reasonable file size to get a good print?
Click to expand...

No. You're talking about a square print but the image isn't square.

But if you fix that, then you have plenty enough pixels.

Phil1974 said:
Also, when I export to jpeg to get it printed the file drops from around 14mb to 8mb. I know jpeg compresses but does this affect printing and if so how can I export at the original size?
Click to expand...

It's not the file size that matters, it's the number of pixels. Does your JPEG have the same pixel dimensions as your RAW file? If it does, and you've exported it on a high quality setting, then you should be OK. (So long as you fix the square / unsquare thing.)
 
Thanks Stuart,
So if I crop it square keeping roughly the same pixel count I should be ok? I think I may be exporting incorrectly from Lightroom so I'll check that too as when I uploaded a crop to an online printers it said it would only give a "fair" result.
 
Phil1974 said:
So if I crop it square keeping roughly the same pixel count I should be ok?
Click to expand...
If you do a square crop you'll have 3264 pixels per side. If your print is 30 inches across, you'll have about 109 pixels per inch (PPI).

Is that enough? Well, many people say you "need" 300 PPI, but they're wrong. 300 PPI is basically about the limit of the resolution of the human eye, so you can only resolve that many pixels if your eye is very close to the picture. Camera club judges might work like that, and if the image is small then you don't have much choice. But in the real world one tends to stand back to appreciate a picture, and the larger the picture the further back you stand.

Interestingly, 109 PPI is roughly the same as the resolution of a standard PC monitor these days. So you can test this for yourself. Enlarge the image to a 100% view on your screen (obviously you'll only see a portion of it). Then visualise how big the whole image would be (30 inches square) and sit back at a comfortable distance to see the whole image. What is the quality like? If it looks OK like that, it will look OK printed.
 
Stewart,
Thanks so much for that. Interesting about the monitor as well, I did wonder if there was a way of "checking" what the print would look like on screen so that's brilliant.
I only have a laptop so I assume the resolution would be lower as it wouldn't be as high quality as a decent monitor?
 
What we need to remember as well is most large prints are still produced on ink jet style printers that do work in our favour to reduce pixelation as there is some bleed. I have a 30x20 inch print of my daughter that was quite a heavy crop and taken on a 10mp dslr, looks great
 
testbloke said:
What we need to remember as well is most large prints are still produced on ink jet style printers that do work in our favour to reduce pixelation as there is some bleed. I have a 30x20 inch print of my daughter that was quite a heavy crop and taken on a 10mp dslr, looks great
Click to expand...

Thanks Kevin that's good to know :)
 
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Phil1974 said:
I only have a laptop so I assume the resolution would be lower as it wouldn't be as high quality as a decent monitor?
Click to expand...
Not necesarilly, some laptops are just shrunken monitors.
What are you editing in? In photoshop, I can go to view->Rulers, I then zoom in until the ruler size is roughly equal to real size (actually I go around 20% over) then scan my images for blemishes closely. If I am happy with the quality like that, I know someone sat at the correct distance should be happy.
I think a 5 foot (60") print I got was around 4000 pixels as shot, but, part of my editing on it was to increase the dpi to 150 (so the edits didn't degrade the information).

The larger the image, the bigger the impact, and in some ways the less chance someone is going to pixel peep.
Also, are you looking at paper, 'art' paper or canvas? A grain (like canvas/art paper) hides some pixelation.
 
600x600 is only 24 inch square ( or 2ft2 ) not 30 , so quite a bit smaller . I've just had some 12x18's printed from a crop image on my 40d and they have come out great . I recon that I could have gone even bigger still .
 
Just run a copy of this
DWP 211213 by Nod on Talk Photography
off at A3+ upscaled slightly to 300DPI from a 4608px x 3072px which I cropped slightly (to fit the A3+ format which isn't quite 3:2), resizing up to 5705px x 3886px in PSE 7. Considering it's from a CSC and a "consumer" grade lens (70-300VR), I'm very pleased with the result! Close inspection does show its shortcomings but IMO the slight motion blur is more visible than the (invisible) JPEG artefaction and pixilation.
 
Just noticed this thread has been resurrected :)
I edited in Lightroom and managed to get some really nice prints done 600x600 on a poster type print. Really pleased with the results and it's given me the bug to get more printed and go bigger next time :)
 
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