What size prints can I get?

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:03:12 +0000, void.no.spam.com DeleteThis @gmail.com wrote:

> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest size photo-
> quality print that I can get?
>
> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest size
> photo-quality print that I can get?

FWIW - a few years back I printed some photos from a 1mp camera -
1152x864. We did some 8x10's that were pretty damned good.
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

On Jul 19, 12:03 pm, "void.no.spam....@gmail.com"
<void.no.spam.....RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest size photo-
> quality print that I can get?
>
> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest size
> photo-quality print that I can get?

There are a few ways to get even bigger prints out of these - a great
software that helps is Genuine Fractals. It's a photoshop plug-in the
enlarges images, usually with great results. You can get a free demo,
but the software only costs like $150 from OnOne Software.

Also printing on textured materials or adding digital paintstrokes
with a plug-in from Alienskin (also inexpensive) help mask the
pixilation that would occur in a regular large print.

Caroline
www.canvaspress.com
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

void.no.spam.com.DeleteThis@gmail.com added these comments in the current
discussion du jour ...

> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest
> size photo- quality print that I can get?
>
> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest
> size photo-quality print that I can get?
>
Most people subscribe to 200 PPI as the minimum for a "good" print,
300 preferable, although if your definition of "good" isn't too
strict and you keep viewing distances reasonable, you can get
surprisingly good results with small image sizes. If you use 200
PPI, then your 1024 image would get you to 5 x 4 but you may be OK
at 4 x 6. The 1600 image will nominally you to 8 x 6, you may be OK
at 8.5 x 11. I have a Canon Pixma 6600 and get what are more than
acceptable results to glossy paper 8.5 x 11 with images as small as
1400 x 1050, which is only about 130 PPI, but I view them at normal
viewing distances.

Depending on the quality of the image and other factors, when you
don't have nearly enough PPI, you'll see visible aliasing, i.e.,
jaggies, you may see streaks and blobs near small detail which can
come from over compressing JPEG images, and you may see
posterization, which is non-continuous color. The only way to be
certain is to try some test prints and decide for yourself.

If you're stuck with images that turn out to be too small, there're
a variety of techniques that a good photo editor can do to try to
fool the eye into thinking the print looks OK.

Now, if your definition of "photo quality" means "35mm quality",
then you're going to need 300 PPI absolute minimum, 450 better, and
some would say 600, which would make your prints postage stamps.

--
HP, aka Jerry
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

HEMI-Powered wrote:
> void.no.spam.com.RemoveThis@gmail.com added these comments in the current
> discussion du jour ...
>
>> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest
>> size photo- quality print that I can get?
>>
>> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest
>> size photo-quality print that I can get?
>>
> Most people subscribe to 200 PPI as the minimum for a "good" print,
> 300 preferable, although if your definition of "good" isn't too
> strict and you keep viewing distances reasonable, you can get
> surprisingly good results with small image sizes. If you use 200
> PPI, then your 1024 image would get you to 5 x 4 but you may be OK
> at 4 x 6. The 1600 image will nominally you to 8 x 6, you may be OK
> at 8.5 x 11. I have a Canon Pixma 6600 and get what are more than
> acceptable results to glossy paper 8.5 x 11 with images as small as
> 1400 x 1050, which is only about 130 PPI, but I view them at normal
> viewing distances.
>
> Depending on the quality of the image and other factors, when you
> don't have nearly enough PPI, you'll see visible aliasing, i.e.,
> jaggies, you may see streaks and blobs near small detail which can
> come from over compressing JPEG images, and you may see
> posterization, which is non-continuous color. The only way to be
> certain is to try some test prints and decide for yourself.
>
> If you're stuck with images that turn out to be too small, there're
> a variety of techniques that a good photo editor can do to try to
> fool the eye into thinking the print looks OK.
>
> Now, if your definition of "photo quality" means "35mm quality",
> then you're going to need 300 PPI absolute minimum, 450 better, and
> some would say 600, which would make your prints postage stamps.
>
There is a maximum resolution for printing on commercial photo printing
equipment. Read the information at
www.scantips.net
for more details, with illustrations.
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

ray added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

> On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:03:12 +0000, void.no.spam.com DeleteThis @gmail.com
> wrote:
>
>> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest
>> size photo- quality print that I can get?
>>
>> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest
>> size photo-quality print that I can get?
>
> FWIW - a few years back I printed some photos from a 1mp
> camera - 1152x864. We did some 8x10's that were pretty damned
> good.
>
I agree. See my long reply to the OP. Car pictures are my primary
subject, I view from normal reading distances, and I do not demand
absolute absense of aliasing, artifacts, or posterization. I save
my images to what many call much too smal because I don't print
much, my primary interest is on-screen, like for slide shows, and
Windows does a really bad job of rendering image sizes that are
much bigger than screen resolution, which for me is 1280 x 960.

--
HP, aka Jerry
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

Ron Hunter wrote:
> HEMI-Powered wrote:

>> Now, if your definition of "photo quality" means "35mm quality", then
>> you're going to need 300 PPI absolute minimum, 450 better, and some
>> would say 600, which would make your prints postage stamps.
>>
> There is a maximum resolution for printing on commercial photo printing
> equipment. Read the information at
> www.scantips.net
> for more details, with illustrations.

And for an opposing view, see:
http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/printer-ppi

Roger
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:
> Ron Hunter wrote:
>> HEMI-Powered wrote:
>
>>> Now, if your definition of "photo quality" means "35mm quality", then
>>> you're going to need 300 PPI absolute minimum, 450 better, and some
>>> would say 600, which would make your prints postage stamps.
>>>
>> There is a maximum resolution for printing on commercial photo
>> printing equipment. Read the information at
>> www.scantips.net
>> for more details, with illustrations.
>
> And for an opposing view, see:
> http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/printer-ppi
>
> Roger

Different subject, entirely. Note we are talking about photo
processing, NOT modern inkjet, or laser, printers. Of course, these
have their own problems.
I still have my doubts that anyone could tell the difference between an
inkjet print at 300dpi and one at 1200dpi in a 4x6 size.
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

On Jul 19, 1:03 pm, "void.no.spam....@gmail.com"
<void.no.spam.... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest size photo-
> quality print that I can get?
>
> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest size
> photo-quality print that I can get?


With my 1.3mp Fuji 1400 (1600x1200 I believe), I have never liked the
prints over 5x7, but at that size they are comparable to a APS 5x7.
Any bigger and the image falls apart even using Genuine Fractals, just
isn't enough data to fill in, even 8x10s. On the other hand it makes
wonderful screen backgrounds, when viewed on a 17" monitor. We printed
up some 4x6s from our vaction last spring for my mother who is in a
nursing home, the photos from the Fuji at 4x6 were hard to tell from
my photos from a D200 reduced to 4x6 @ 300ppi. But I have just printed
some of the D200 images at 16x20.

Tom
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

> They human eye is really quite remarkable. Laser printers have had
> to go up to 1200 dpi to produce sharp text because the eye can see
> jagged edges at lower dpi. Same with photographs: high contrast
> boundaries that are very sharp give that wow factor. The high
> resolution also contributes to the fine texture often seen in
> large format prints.

Mostly I agree with what you wrote, but the case of laser printer
needing 1200 dpi is a bit more complex then simply what the needed
resolution is. A laser printer prints its pixels either all white or
all black, this makes it very prone to aliasing. The jagged edges that
you see in a laser printer are lower spatial frequencies, as low as a
few cycles per inch. If you could print each dot at different gray
levels you would not need nearly 1200 dpi.


Scott
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

HEMI-Powered wrote:

> First, what means "dpi" in this context? I assume you mean PPI.
> If you do, I would strongly agree with you. In fact, unless the
> camera is pretty damn good, as is the lens and the person taking
> the picture, I would say that even 200 PPI vs 300-400 PPI would
> be difficult for most people to discern.

Actually the better the camera and lens the harder it is to tell the
difference between a 200ppi print and a 300 ppi one.

My Sony F828 is not the sharpest at the pixel level, and with that I see
a huge difference between 200 and 300 ppi prints, but with the 350D and
a good lens it takes a closer look to tell the difference.

That is one problem with these debates, we tend to treat all pixels the
same and they are not.

Scott
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

tomm42 <tmonego.TakeThisOut@wildblue.net> wrote in news:1184935828.421380.264360
@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

> <snip> On the other hand it makes wonderful screen backgrounds, </snip>

Therein lies the epitaph of a whole industry, and the birth of an age of
visual communication! People are taking zillions more pictures today than
ever before -- and looking at them on their computer screens, emailing them
to Grandma, etc. There used to be a roll of 36 exposures, developed and
printed and viewed eagerly in the car on the way home from the photo store.
Today, there are as many or as few pictures as we want, instantly viewable
and infinitely sharable, at essentially zero marginal cost. It's rare
today that a photo becomes a print, and it NEVER happens to 36 of them in a
row any more. Almost any digicam is good enough to make an excellent photo
for screen viewing. Automation helps anyone get the right exposure.
Stabilization steadies our photos, even in our human hands. And the cost
of photographic equipment continues to go down even as the capability goes
up. Photo sharing services are at your fingertips. This transformation
has given us the political consequences of the scandal in Abu Ghraib prison
and, just this week, a stunning visual record of the steam pipe explosion
in Manhattan.

OK, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. ~Ray
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

void.no.spam.com RemoveThis @gmail.com wrote:
> If I took a picture and it is 1024x768, what is the largest size photo-
> quality print that I can get?
>
> If I took a picture and it is 1600x1200, what is the largest size
> photo-quality print that I can get?
>

If you are a normal person, make a normal print, put it in a frame and
hang it on the wall, all other things being equal you will get a
perfectly acceptable 8x10 from 1600x1200 as I did from my old canon A40.
I now have a 5 mp A95. This also makes a very nice 8x10, but to tell the
truth, darned if I can see much difference between the two cameras (in
this regard).

Now, if you are not a normal person (and I suspect you will find many
such people in response to your query), you will not think of putting it
in a frame and hanging it on the wall until you have conducted a
vigorous post processing check.
For this you will need a watchmakers loop or equivalent, a knowledge of
the limits of the resolution of the human eye and a table of conversions.
Using this latter method, you will quickly find nothing is acceptable
regardless of how you shoot, so take a shortcut. Make prints with what
you have and determine if in your judgment the prints are acceptable and
ignore everything else, including most of this post.

ps - I am not suggesting resolution and dpi are not relevant, but these
are matters best considered when buying a camera. Whether or not a print
is acceptable depends on many factors including the subject matter.
Dave Cohen
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get? 

Dave Cohen wrote:
> ps - I am not suggesting resolution and dpi are not relevant, but these
> are matters best considered when buying a camera. Whether or not a print
> is acceptable depends on many factors including the subject matter.
> Dave Cohen

This I would agree with. I have another way of putting it, if you
already have an image, printing it bigger will normally make it look
better. On the other hand if you don't already have an image and you
want to make a large print more pixels will make it look better.

Bigger = good
More pixels = good
Bigger + more pixels = even better yet.
Bigger + more pixels + low noise pixels = even more better.

Scott
 >> Stay informed about: What size prints can I get?