wlaidlaw Posted July 24, 2007 Share #1 Posted July 24, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I hope I am not duplicating a previous thread but I could not find anything relevant. I have taken an image and printed it to A3+ size 13" x 19" or 329mm x 483mm. It is a busy image with lots going on and whereas it has printed very well at the above size, it could usefully be printed bigger. I have a corner in my house that needs a 24" x 36" picture in it. There is a professional photo studio in our village who can do this for me on their big Canon roll machines which do up to A0 size on Canon professional archival paper but it is not cheap. What is the biggest anyone has printed an M8 file (it would be a 57MB 16 bit TIFF)? Am I expecting too much trying to print to 24" x 36"? Wilson Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/29595-how-big-can-you-print-an-m8-file/?do=findComment&comment=312574'>More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 24, 2007 Posted July 24, 2007 Hi wlaidlaw, Take a look here How big can you print an M8 file. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
jaapv Posted July 24, 2007 Share #2 Posted July 24, 2007 Don't pin me down on inches and cm's , Wilson. The widest I have done was 100 cm and that was excellent from a viewing distance of 50 cm or more. and acceptable down to 25 cm viewing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth_c Posted July 24, 2007 Share #3 Posted July 24, 2007 Wilson, the size you want to print at seems very achievable. I printed some tests off on my HP plotter at about 1m wide and they look pretty good even without really doing much to get them print ready. All depends on the viewing distance I guess but once the print is behing glass (I assume) it should be fine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
guywalder Posted July 24, 2007 Share #4 Posted July 24, 2007 Wilson, have a look here: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/9022-30-x-40-inch-m8-prints.html Guy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 24, 2007 Share #5 Posted July 24, 2007 I hope I am not duplicating a previous thread but I could not find anything relevant. I have taken an image and printed it to A3+ size 13" x 19" or 329mm x 483mm. It is a busy image with lots going on and whereas it has printed very well at the above size, it could usefully be printed bigger. I have a corner in my house that needs a 24" x 36" picture in it. There is a professional photo studio in our village who can do this for me on their big Canon roll machines which do up to A0 size on Canon professional archival paper but it is not cheap. What is the biggest anyone has printed an M8 file (it would be a 57MB 16 bit TIFF)? Am I expecting too much trying to print to 24" x 36"? Wilson I can see no problem printing at least to the same size of a good quality 35mm neg, especially if upscaling with software like Genuine Fractals. The UK lab I use (accepts Disk or FTP) prints on Kodak Endura (i.e. real photographic) paper, quote a price for 30 x 24 inches: £26.75 +VAT or 40 x 30 inches £35.30 + VAT (I recommend doing a free calibration print with them first and match your output to theirs, quoting " do not correct": that way, you maintain control). Contact via my website if you want details? Best Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 24, 2007 Share #6 Posted July 24, 2007 Hi WIlson I'be gone up to A2 with my Epson 2800 and I suspect I could have gone higher if necessary. I used the demo version on Alien Skin Blowup to get a file of the required size. The image was one of the pebble beach at Dunganess and the detail was impressive. As has already been mentioned the viewing distance is also important. You can always get an idea of what it will look like by blowing it up to the required size and then cropping out and printing an A4 section of the resized image. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #7 Posted July 24, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Thanks guys for all the advice. I have upscaled in Photoshop. I am told that PS upscaling for 16 bit TIFF's is near to indistinguishable from the professional upscaling programs, as long as you set it to bi-cubic. I stand to be corrected but I have been told that it is really only on JPEG's that the plug ins or stand alone programs are much better than straight PS. I have done some pixel peeping and it looks fine to me. I am a bit worried about colour matching but these are professional photo people, so I might leave it to them. I can take down my A3+ print and say I would like it like that for colour balance but 2-3% lighter. The image looks near perfect for colour on my Monaco Optix Pro profiled iMac screen. I will go down for a quote this afternoon and let you know how I get on. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 24, 2007 Share #8 Posted July 24, 2007 Wilson, it might be worthwhile preparing the resized image, adjusting colour etc, and then copying it and resizing it to a smaller size, say A4. Then get them to print this A4 version as a proof. You could then use the resulting print as a reference and ask them to adjust the full sized one based on any changes you'd like to see to colour balance, brightness etc. Assuming they'd use the same machine for both prints of course. Hope this makes sense. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth_c Posted July 24, 2007 Share #9 Posted July 24, 2007 Maybe i am horribly out of touch (seems likely) but all this talk of resizing has me confused... I thought that most pro printers looked to let the printer/rip handle scaling? Is that not the case? Certainly when I print large format (HP plotter) I find the results 'in machine' often better than I can achieve from my own scaling. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 24, 2007 Share #10 Posted July 24, 2007 Thanks guys for all the advice. I have upscaled in Photoshop. I am told that PS upscaling for 16 bit TIFF's is near to indistinguishable from the professional upscaling programs, as long as you set it to bi-cubic. I stand to be corrected but I have been told that it is really only on JPEG's that the plug ins or stand alone programs are much better than straight PS. I have done some pixel peeping and it looks fine to me. I am a bit worried about colour matching but these are professional photo people, so I might leave it to them. I can take down my A3+ print and say I would like it like that for colour balance but 2-3% lighter. The image looks near perfect for colour on my Monaco Optix Pro profiled iMac screen. I will go down for a quote this afternoon and let you know how I get on. Wilson I don't know if this bears out what you say, Wilson: section from full size M8/elmarit 28/2.8 asph 16 bit tiff upscaled by PS CS2 and Genuine Fractals 200% (straight, no sharpening/grain added in GF)? Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/29595-how-big-can-you-print-an-m8-file/?do=findComment&comment=312633'>More sharing options...
jaapv Posted July 24, 2007 Share #11 Posted July 24, 2007 Maybe i am horribly out of touch (seems likely) but all this talk of resizing has me confused... I thought that most pro printers looked to let the printer/rip handle scaling? Is that not the case? Certainly when I print large format (HP plotter) I find the results 'in machine' often better than I can achieve from my own scaling. I didn't resize; I just let the profiler at my printer-lab handle it. I sent them a 16-bit aRGB TIFF file. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #12 Posted July 24, 2007 I don't know if this bears out what you say, Wilson: section from full size M8/elmarit 28/2.8 asph 16 bit tiff upscaled by PS CS2 and Genuine Fractals (straight, no sharpening/grain added in GF)? Piers, I don't think your images attached themselves - I can't see anything anyway. I bought Genuine Fractals about two weeks before my last big Windoze computer died and I replaced it with a PowerMac, on which of course, that version of GF did not work. They wanted me to pay the full amount again which I baulked at. BTW the Good Fedex Fairy has finally arrived, as I was writing this post, with my e60, almost 6 months to the day since I registered and quite a few emails to Solms. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #13 Posted July 24, 2007 Piers, I refreshed and now they have attached - apologies there must be too many school kids exchanging acid rock songs for their iPods on our village internet link. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 24, 2007 Share #14 Posted July 24, 2007 Piers, I don't think your images attached themselves - I can't see anything anyway. I bought Genuine Fractals about two weeks before my last big Windoze computer died and I replaced it with a PowerMac, on which of course, that version of GF did not work. They wanted me to pay the full amount again which I baulked at. BTW the Good Fedex Fairy has finally arrived, as I was writing this post, with my e60, almost 6 months to the day since I registered and quite a few emails to Solms. Wilson Pix in place now--sorry for your GF blues! New GF 5 has improved interface and functionality: see screenshot (if I can manage that pesky upload competently? Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/29595-how-big-can-you-print-an-m8-file/?do=findComment&comment=312645'>More sharing options...
volkerhopf Posted July 24, 2007 Share #15 Posted July 24, 2007 Hi Wilson, The biggest sofar we have printed on canvas was 40x60" and our customer liked it very much. We do regularily 28x40" and everybody was happy with it. Regards Volker Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realphotos Posted July 24, 2007 Share #16 Posted July 24, 2007 I have recently printed pictures from my m8 as A1s ! They were taken with my M8 and the Wate at 5000ft from a chopper with the door off. Shot in Raw. Opened PS ACR. The resulting prints are really quite extraordinary. Since I can not show you here can I say by way of a comparison I have also just purchased an Ortho corrected set of 70 photos shot at 11000ft. off the same piece of land with resolution of 12.5cm*. (*there is a technically more correct way of expressing this. Suffice to say its a stageringly sharp picture.) Tiled together these 70 pics came up to 1.5gigs. For a vertical land photo file we decided to drop the colour bit depth down to get the file size to 449megs. (For a photo of farm land this is not critical.Its not in my normal work flow!) The file becomes a little more managble. (One of you technical wizards may comment does that affect the resolution?) Any way this file printed is very very sharp. I mention here to say I have independant professional sharp files that the Wate M8 file stands up to it admirably. The little twist to the story about printing large is related to an extraordinary software program called Qimarge. For a long time I have been aware of alogorithms like B Spline and Lancoz as an alternative to PS’s Bicubic. I have often upsized or down with these alogorithms with real success. (easiest to see them at work in Irfan View) Qimarge does the resizing as required on the fly as needed at the time of printing AND then adds sharpening as a final process as you calibrate it. Qimarge acts like a rip. It has terrific alogorithms for upsizing or downsizing your file to your printer as you print. It has colour management facilities. The Qimarge web site is very detailed and more eloquent on their own subject than me. I look forward to hearing if other forum users have had similar success’s Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wlaidlaw Posted July 24, 2007 Author Share #17 Posted July 24, 2007 I will take both natural size and upscaled files (that is stretching my French a bit - I think it is fiches augmentées proportionellement) down to the photo studio and see what they think. I can always download the 30 day trial of Genuine Fractals, although I don't know if like many free trials, it watermarks the image until you purchase. It is quite an expensive plug in at $160 + VAT for Europe. Piers, were your images upscaled from 16 bit TIFF's? I can certainly see the difference. Wilson Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbuckley Posted July 24, 2007 Share #18 Posted July 24, 2007 You might be interested in this posting from a few weeks back: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/27254-david-adamsons-graciousness-skill.html David Adamson is a professional printer and M8 user who printed a 30"X40" print from a DNG file that, to my eyes, turned out gloriously. I'm not proficient in printing so I can't tell you what printer he used, etc., but you can see from the pictures that the print came out nicely. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piers Posted July 24, 2007 Share #19 Posted July 24, 2007 I will take both natural size and upscaled files (that is stretching my French a bit - I think it is fiches augmentées proportionellement) down to the photo studio and see what they think. I can always download the 30 day trial of Genuine Fractals, although I don't know if like many free trials, it watermarks the image until you purchase. It is quite an expensive plug in at $160 + VAT for Europe. Piers, were your images upscaled from 16 bit TIFF's? I can certainly see the difference. Wilson Yes Wilson the upscales were made in 16 bit mode from a single 16 bit Tiff from an M8 raw dng (Adobe rgb) then converted to 8bit srgb Jpeg. Best, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbuckley Posted July 24, 2007 Share #20 Posted July 24, 2007 By the way, lovely photo to begin this thread. It looks like something out of a Bergman film from the '60s... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.