Robert,
The best way to save your images is at their maximum resolution.
When you start printing the images scale them up or down to the size you will be printing. When scaling up I do this in 10% steps. I read this somewhere -the results should be better this way- on the internet and it works for me, although I never compared to the results of scaling up straight from the original file to the desired size.
I print my images at A4 or smaller at 300 dpi. As I am used to the metric system instead of inches, working at 254 dpi gives me an extra check as a 30x40 image has a pixelamount of 3000x4000 etc.
Just to make life easier for me.
Moreover, these are the prefered sizes by my pro lab, so I use these for my own printing as well.
I never save these sizes as TIFF; an image of 50x75 cm will be about 115 Mb. My archive contains just only the images at their original resolution.
Leen
Leen,
Thank you for your reply.
Meanwhile, I went to a shop where they sell digital camera's and was told that with 3,3 megapixels you will never get a decent picture larger than A4. That answer will do me fine unless you disagree.
Tot ziens
Robert
Robert,
If I can print excellent images at 50x70 cm (I even display them in my window) from a 6 megapixel camera, the Fuji S2 Pro, you should be able to print at least 50% of this area from 3,3 Megapixel. A picture of that size is over 3 times larger than A4.
The main problem is, due to competition, hardky anyone selling cameras uses these cameras and tries to push the limits. They don't care wether they sell cameras or sugar.
Leen
If you want to know anything outside the forum, please call me. My number is on my website. I'll help anyone as far as my limited knowledge stretches.
I wonder why so few people outside the USA and Canada are on this forum. This is a wonderful source of valuable knowledge from friendly people.
At least, now we learn to know each other rather well.
Robert, I can't speak for other forum members, but I can tell you one reason why I didn't reply to your post. I still don't do metric!! :) I know; that's a terrible thing to have to admit, but it's still true. Whenever I see terms I don't understand I run and hide. And I'm still trying to figure out what A3 paper is. (blush) Welcome to the forum, though!!
I didn't find an answer to your question about converting an image to tiff format. You might have contacted Leen directly by now, which is fine, but for the sake of others who might read this thread, I'll answer.
The image that comes from your camera - JPEG - is what's called a "lossy" format. That means it's highly compressed to conserve space, and each time you make a change to that JPEG image and resave, further compression occurs and image data is thrown away by the computer. There won't be much noticeable degradation the first couple of times this happens, but over time, the quality of the image will deteriorate. Tiff format, or PSD, is a "non lossy" format. There is no compression and all image data is retained through countless saves. Plus either of the formats will allow you to save any layers that have been added to the image through the editing process. The file sizes for tiff or psd are much bigger, but the advantage is assurance that you'll continue to get maintain quality images. Many people convert their JPEG camera images to a non-lossy format for editing and, if they feel they'll have no future need for any layers, they convert their final masterpiece back to JPEG for archiving. Some paranoics, like me, archive ALL original camera images in one place and save all edited images in tiff or PSD somewhere else.
Collectively, us forum regulars apologize for seeming to be ignoring you. Leen was just doing such a good job!
That's an interesting question, Leen.
My guess is that it has to do with the size of the market for Elements in
the various countries. Even here in the US where I would expect the market
to be largest, we only have a relatively small number of people using the
forum on a regular basis.
Add in other factors such as language, cost, availabilty of Internet access,
etc., and the percentage will drop some more. Still, I would have expected
to have seen more international participation. Especially from Northern and
Central Europe.
Perhaps we have a host of "lurkers" reading but too shy to participate
actively.
Bob
>"Leen Koper" wrote
> I wonder why so few people outside the USA and Canada are on this forum.
Beth
A3 is twice the size of A4.
A4 (8.27" x 11.29") is a bit bigger that Letter (8" x 11", US standard).
Paul
(You can see all the sizes in Word (or similar), do a file>page setup)
Bob
Beat by a minute
Paul
Robert, it will be interesting to hear how your A3 size pictures turn out.
The rule of thumb I've grown to use would say that a 3.3 MP camera would
only support an image of A4 size, not A3 (minimum resolution for printing of
200 pixels per inch, 2000x1600 pixel image). But Leen is the professional
and I'm a rank amateur, so go with what he says and please report back to
us!
Chuck
I've not got the ability to print on A3 paper - but I have printed images that were larger than one is "supposed" to be able to in terms of starting number of pixels by using the incremental re-sizing technique (ie upsample by 10 per cent at a time rather than in one hit until 250 or so ppi at the desired size is reached - and I can't remember where I read that on the net either!) followed by careful unsharp masking. It works very well for images that have had special effects done to them (watercolour or sketch type effects - some of these have to be done at low resolution to get the effect to work properly). For photographs you need a pin sharp original and I haven't tried more than doubling the size (linear dimension). It also depends on how fussy you are, how good your printer is etc.
Interestingly it only seems to work well with digicam images - scanned in images result in garbage. (I've also seen that referred to on the net)
I was trying to think about the logic behind the ten per cent at a time resize. With simple averaging interpolation it wouldn't make a difference - but with non-linear interpolation it would make a difference - but I wouldn't care to have to work out the maths to work out what it is!
Susan S
I've never really done a comparison of upscaling using the ten percent increments before - just used it on faith. I just tried it - It makes some difference on-screen (didn't try print). If I go from 180 to 300 ppi in one hit, then there is a sort of softened but still pixellated effect, (like looking at the original image at 200 per cent) which shows up badly in some areas, in some images after USM. If I go up at ten per cent increments this pixellation is much less evident in some images - I can put more unsharp masking on and get a cleaner reult (and if I used an edge mask on the USM it would be better still) I'm not sure that there isn't a slightly larger degree of softening using the ncremental upscaling however. Both observations make some sort of sense when I think about what the process is likely to be doing (but not enough sense to explain it coherently..!)
Susan S.
Susan, I liked your earlier explanation re the nonlinearity of the
interpolation - works for me! Thanks for sharing your experiment...
Today I will be delivering a framed image (the last one in my baby gallery); its size is 50x50cm (20x20 inches). Its original size is about 2900x2900 pixels as it is cropped from an horizontal shot from my Fuji S2 Pro camera. I upsampled it to 5000x5000 in 7 steps. No artifacts at all.
Recently a colleague of mine showed me a print of 2.40 meters wide (8 feet) from a Hasselblad with digital back. It looked absolutely stunning!
BTW His gallery is really worth visitingit is rather extreme, but extremely good photography. You can find his images at http:www.//hetportret.nl
Leen
Today I will be delivering a framed image (the last one in my baby gallery); its size is 50x50cm (20x20 inches). Its original size is about 2900x2900 pixels as it is cropped from an horizontal shot from my Fuji S2 Pro camera. I upsampled it to 5000x5000 in 7 steps. No artifacts at all.
Recently a colleague of mine showed me a print of 2.40 meters wide (8 feet) from a Hasselblad with digital back. It looked absolutely stunning!
BTW His gallery is really worth visitingit is rather extreme, but extremely good photography. You can find his images at http:www.//hetportret.nl
Leen
Sorry. The right URL should read <http://www.hetportret.nl> of course.
I apologise; it 's 6 o'clock in the morning and I should go to work all ready. Still a little asleep.
Leen
Leen,
Quickly nipped over to your friends website to have a look.
Very nice and refreshing, definitely not an impressionist by heart.
May be one day and with a lot of help of PE I will be able to make pictures half the expressive quality his pictures have.
Robert
Leen,
Thank you for the link to Henk's site. Very interesting work, he is very
talented.
I do prefer your style of wedding photography though.
Bob
Leen - it' s interesting that when I see people discussing upsizing of digital camera images, practical photographers who actually have to sell good quality large images to make a living are the ones who say this can be done - and they should know! (if it didn't work people wouldn't pay for them!) To see the slight distortions that the resizing made in my experiment, I had to look at them at 100 per cent on the screen - they weren't noticeable at all at print size (whether I went up in one hit or incrementally).
Robert - the amount of space your image takes up on the storage medium is controlled by the number and characteristics of the pixels, and the degree of (in your case) JPG compression. At the same level of compression, some images seem to take up a lot more space than others, due to the colour range, contrast etc. They will take up the space that they need to take up; giving them more space won't halp any. The only way that you could increase the amount of information is to reduce the amount of JPG compression - always use the least compressed (super fine or whatever ) that your camera offers, or if the camera allows you to, use a format that doesn't involve lossy compression, such as RAW.
Susan S.
Leen, thanks! Guess I should stop criticizing upsampling; it's just been
hard for me to let go of the concept that a pixel not captured by the
camera, created by a mathematical algorithm, is a 'bad' pixel...!
Chuck
Leen, thanks from me, too, for the information about incremental upsizing. Like Chuck, I've been avoiding it like the plague. Until this post if I'd ever even heard of "the 10% thing", I sure hadn't considered that it would have any effect on the quality of a resize upwards. Susan wouldn't want to do the math (and I couldn't!) but my brain can get a global idea of how doing this would more tightly control the placement of those made up pixels. Now why didn't I think of that?!
I'd posted a comment yesterday about how every time the forum gets a new member we all learn something new. Yep. You just proved it.
And now I can go back to those safely archived original JPEGs and do a little experimenting. See people? This is why we NEVER disturb an original! :)
Happy birthday to you :)))
Ray
Happy Birthday!!! Although I'm so late in reading this, I don't think it's even your birthday any more where you are, but it is where I live! :)
Like I wrote before, thanks to all of you.
Chuck, sharing knowledge is a moral obligation to me. I've learned so much from other people and that's why I'm always willing to share my knowledge, even in a language that sometimes might look funny as I'm not a native speaker.
Moreover, I think the profession has lost too much respect due to people who pretend to be a professional photographer and hardly know how to hold a camera. In my opinion a photogapher should earn respect because he/she should be a real craftsman, who knows how to deal with light. All other extras like Photoshop can add to the impact of an image, so whenever there is an opportunity I try to learn from you folks.
Although, sometimes I get a little discouraged when I see what people like Jodi have mastered in such a short time, compared to my own progress. But I 'll keep on trying. ;-))
Leen
Leen, thanks again! And to you and Susan, I want to report on my first
somewhat jumbled experiment with upsampling. I made some serious mistakes,
but the result was interesting:
I began with an unedited camera image, 2272x1704 pixels and I used resize
with downsampling to get a 4.5 inch by 6 inch, 300 ppi which I would print
as my base. Then I duplicated that one and downsized it with sampling to a
4.5 inch by 6 inch, 133 ppi (why 133? I actually downsized by pixel
dimensions to 800x600 and 133 was the result). Then I duplicated again and
was going to take the 4.5x6, 133 and 10% increment it up to 4.5x6, 300.
Here's where I got confused and decided to print the first two....on the
same sheet of photo paper. Well....to make a long story a little shorter,
what I wound up printing was the original and one that had now been
upsampled (automatically when using the handles on the move tool to expand
the linear dimensions) to 300 ppi - in one move. I didn't figure that out
until after I printed it, but....there was no discernible difference between
the original and the upsampled printed images, even though the upsampling
occurred in one big gulp! I haven't gone back and done the 10% increments
because I wasn't sure how I was going to tell it from the others...! That,
and the bell went off indicating my black ink reservoir was low, and I have
none at home...
Bottom line on this first experiment: upsampling is not as bad as I and
others have advertised... Leen, thanks again for shedding some light on
this subject!
Chuck
You are welcome.
But I didnot invent it; I was just only the messenger. (but sometimes messengers get their head cut off)
I think the strength of this forum is the divers background of the people. Some are in the IT bussines, some from the graphic arts world, some, like me, are photographers and the majority is just only enthousiastic about producing stunning images in their spare time.
I think it would be nice if we had the opportunity to meet each other in person. This could be a wonderful learning and teaching event. Maybe somewhere in New England in fall?
AFAIK Jodi lives there, it is close to Canada and just only 7 hours flying from Europe to Boston.....
Whoever might start to organise this, I volunteer to stage free (usual entrance fee about 200 euro) portrait seminars. ;-))
Leen
Leen - I will be visiting Toronto and somewhere near Albany (close to Jodi I think), and then on to my parent's place in England in September - at this stage we'll be in Canada/New York State from 6-16 September - final details to be arranged (we still haven't booked flights yet) . Then London(mainly)/Oxford(weekend of October 4th)/Cambridge until October 15th. I would love to meet as many of you as possible...(Downside of the trip - Andrew's laptop doesn't run Elements - he hasn't upgraded to 9.1, and doesn't want to in case it messes up an otherwise perfectly functioning system. How am i going to cope for six weeks without it!!))
Susan S.
Susan,
Maybe a stop into a Sam's club or an Office Depot or Staples while in that
states is called for. Then you can have your own laptop. (Just bring along
your PSE CD)
Pete
Don't tempt me Pete! But I've already got a loooooong shopping list (and zero budget).
Susan S.
Susan,
There are a lot of 6-12 month same as cash deals..... (hmm, those don't
even enter in to the current budget)... something to think about eh?
Pete
I suspect that I would require a US address to enter into one of those deals (they would want to find me in 12 months to get their money!)....and i'm afraid I'm one of those rare creatures these days that pays cash or if I use credit cards I pay it off in full each month.
Susan S.
Susan, if you were coming through Houston, I'd lend you my laptop for the
rest of your trip. It's a PC type, loaded with Elements 2 and PS7, and just
sitting idle at the moment...
:-)
Chuck
Chuck,
What a nice offer to Susan. And Susan, that sounds like a good enough
reason to change destination to Houston
Yeah Chuck, I think you are a hell of a guy no matter what everyone says
about you :) :) :)
Pete
Thank you Chuck, but it's not currenty on my list of destinations! (I'm trying to cut down the number of places on the itinerary as my husband tries to make it more and more complicated - I like visiting new places but I dislike travelling, if you know what I mean - the thought of all those long-haul plane trips, long car drives on the Wrong side of the road, all with a four year old and six year old in tow fill me with fear and trepidation....)
susan S
Susan, I would never suggest a stop in Houston to a person coming to North
America to 'see the sights'; sadly, it's not a beautiful place overall,
although it has its spots - where I try to hang out. Go north and enjoy -
and be safe!!
:-)
Chuck