image size, resolution and home printing

[crockny]

Hi - I am soon going to be showing 3 photos in an exhibition. I print on an Epson R2880. I am confused!

Is there any point in changing a 240 resolution to 300?

Is there any point in printing from a TIFF file instead of a JPEG at home?

A file SOC is 17.28 x 11.52 at 300 pixels/inch. Does this mean the largest I can print this
would be approx. 11 x 17 inches?

If I want to mat an 8x12 print should I print borderless?

Sorry for so many questions but I've just gotten into printing and matting ...

[OsmosisStudios]

it means the max size you can print is 11x17 at 300PPI. If you want to print bigger, go ahead. Ive easily done 24x36" prints with a 10MP camera. Its all about viewing distance vs size.

[JFSanders]

Changing a 240 native to 300 will require upsampling and MAY cause some image degradation. They are fairly close so you may not see any degradation but I would definitely check to be sure. I am also new to the printing end and reading a whole bunch about output resolution and sizing for printing. Epson has a pretty good book out that goes through the whole process from beginning to end.

As far as output format goes it would depend on your color space that you started with. If the TIFF is 8 bit and sRGB then it would look very similar to the jpeg.

Matting is something I know very little about so no help there. I would ask a frame shop what they like to work with. Or maybe someone on here has had experience and will chime in.

Jim

[teaking]

Just to add to the debate I would say the only things that matter are width and height in pixels. The ppi is a physical effect and is how many pixels are in an inch. A lot of people confuse pixels with dots the dpi is printer specific and means how many drops of ink it can lay in an area and is more relevant to colour reproduction the more dots per pixel in theory the better colour rrproduction so if you had 4 inks 4 dots per pixel would give optimal colour reproduction. But be aware the printers colour space and dynamic range is less than your monitor larger bit depth files will help with banding but wont add more colours.

In terms of resolution unless it was requested theres not much point up resing from 240 to 300 in alot of cases printing from your file will give very similar results to printing from a carefully prepared up resed image.

I would say as a quick tip check your levels before printing make sure your using all the range available to you

Hope theres something usefull there.

[crockny]

Eh ... still confused - maybe I should look for that Epson book ...

[JFSanders]

The book helped me a bunch to get started. Here is a link to a bunch of pdf files that cover a whole bunch about printing. Some of it is a little hard to wrap your head around at first.

Digital Dog

Jim

[crockny]

OK let me refine my question a little re cropping and resampling ... when I crop my psd to a specific ratio (usually 6 x 4) my ppi changes, sometimes doubling the number of pixels per inch - should I crop without resampling? How does that affect image quality? What's the best method for keeping the highest quality while cropping and resizing your pictures? I take bird pictures and sometimes have to crop heavily but would like to keep a the 4x6 ratio if possible ...

[OsmosisStudios]

Crop without resampling. Resampling just blows up the image to fit the PPI you want. If you're cropping heavily, then you wont be able to print that big and you'll have to learn how to shoot better.

If you're just cropping for the ratio, then do it without resampling: PS will just crop out the bits that wont be printed.

Better yet, figure out if your software will allow you to do this on the printer end. Many I've seen have a way for you to crop for individual ratios just before printing: all it does is give you a bounding box and you move it to where you want it.

[JFSanders]

OS is right. Re-sampling when changing resolution up, the software just adds pixels that weren't in the original. And it does this by using the nearest neighbor rule which is not good for IQ in your print. When you open your file in PS it will show you what the original file size in pixels is. You can then determine what would be the largest size you could print. If you don't re-sample and just change the resolution number it will calculate the image size for you. Most 10 mp cameras will print at 13x19 at 300ppi resolution. The lower your resolution the larger the printed image. This is acceptable to about 260ppi for most Epson printers. Lower than that and you may see artifacts in the print. The print driver will throw away pixels it can't use. So it is very important to use the printer profile and paper recommended. Also, printing on gloss paper allows for more dpi than matte paper due to ink absorption characteristics. On gloss paper the ink sits on top and in matte it sinks in. Also, I have read that using very high dpi settings such as 2880 and above do not make for a better print especially on matte or presentation papers. I am not sure who wrote it, may have been Thom Hogan, but he states that for all his printing is done at 1440dpi. Saves on ink. And at normal viewing distances the eye can't see a difference as long as the output resolution on the photograph is 260ppi to 360ppi.

This is all relative to the type, model and ink type used to print the picture. So there is no clear answer to me yet as you would find in a recipe book. I have gotten into the habit of using working prints to adjust my workflow. Softproofing is getting much better but I still work print.

Jim

[crockny]

The resolution I start with is 300 ppi ... but cropping changes this ... I'm experimenting with putting 300 ppi in my crop specifications but using the rectangular marquee to keep a fixed ratio of 4 x 6 -- this seems to get me closer to what I want ... any opinions? And as far as shooting better, I shoot continuous AI Servo to have the best chance at catching a moving bird with a sharp eye in a good pose ... that means centering the bird and since I have a 400mm lens, not an 800mm, there are limitations ....