A question from a film guy....

[Andoru]

...how large can you comfortably print your D70 pictures?

[birddog114]

...how large can you comfortably print your D70 pictures?

I have done the photos on super A3+ and A0 size.

[Andoru]

Wow that's impressive!

[Atorie]

I often have mine printed at A2 or A3 without any problems, I also have a couple of 1x1.5m canvases printed.

[Antsl]

The question "how big can you make a print" is rather ambiguous... both in film and in digital. If you were keen you could make a billboard sized image from either a D70 or a 35mm camera ... the resolution would not be that fantastic though. If you were fussy though you would shoot the same image on a medium or a large format film or a 22 megapixel pixel back.

I find I can get an full page A4 for magazine ok out of the D70 ... beyond that I go to medium format ... long live Hasselblad!

[PlatinumWeaver]

20"x30" via a Genuine fractals enlargement.

[Andoru]

The question "how big can you make a print" is rather ambiguous... both in film and in digital. If you were keen you could make a billboard sized image from either a D70 or a 35mm camera ... the resolution would not be that fantastic though. If you were fussy though you would shoot the same image on a medium or a large format film or a 22 megapixel pixel back.

I find I can get an full page A4 for magazine ok out of the D70 ... beyond that I go to medium format ... long live Hasselblad!

I know what you mean, hence I qualify my question with the word "comfortably". I have my eyes on the Hassy H1 but it's so expensive...

[Nnnnsic]

Like Platinum Weaver, I pulled around 20" x 30" from my Genuine Fractals enlargement and cropped it down to 20" x 24".

You could probably pull more out of them, too, I just didn't need to.

[Andoru]

Noise/resolution are acceptable at that size I presume?

[stubbsy]

One thing to bear in mind is perceived noise drops off with the distance of the viewer. If your image is billboard size and your looking at it from 100 metres away will you see the noise that's observable up close? Me thinks not. Same goes for a0 size etc.

[Alex]

Leigh / Platinumweaver,
Pardon my ignorance but what is Genuine Fractuals? Software?
Alex

[leek]

OK... so does this answer the question that I asked in 2 other threads??? i.e. that there is no chance that we D70 users can produce an image suitable for printing at 3m x 2.33m...
i.e. the dimensions required by the Sydney Life competition....

Apparently 35mm can fulfil this criteria - so exactly how far does digital photography have to go???

[johndec]

Apparently 35mm can fulfil this criteria - so exactly how far does digital photography have to go???

I've read that the general consensus is that 24mp would approximate 35mm (quality) film. 24mp is double the resolution of a 6mp D70....

Before you all say I've lost my marbles (again) as 6 x 2 = 12 not 24... To double the resolution you would need to halve the size of the pixels (let's ignore technological and noise issues for the moment). Therefore a 3000 x 2000 sensor would become 6000 x 4000 pixels...

3000 x 2000 = 6 million
6000 x 4000 = 24 million

Therefore, sometimes 6 x 2 = 24

[Nnnnsic]

Genuine Fractals is, much like Extensis' PxlSmartScale, a fractal interpolation plugin (or software application, depending on the version) that using various algorithms can double or triple or even quadruple the image with minimal image degradation visible.

If you want, I'll post some before and after shots of experience I've had with them.

At one point, sirhc55 did, but I think they've been removed.

And yes leek, if you can blow them up to that size and be happy with the image quality, then yeah, it's fine.

That said, when you print at a size like that, you'll end up printing at 72dpi anyway, so your image dimensions get bumped up as your resolution goes down.

You don't have to worry about pixelation (or graininess) from seeing it viewed up close because, when printed that large, the only way a person will see the entire image is from a distance enough back where the pixels or grain won't be immediately visible unless that's part of the intended look of the image.

[Nnnnsic]

Bugger it, I've gone ahead and done it anyway.

I'm not a big fan of this comparison, but it might help to show you, especially as how this is without sharpening so it might have a tad amount of blurring on it, and this is not for the 56k'ers.

Also, this probably won't help... at the time I did this conversion, I was using GF PrintPro version 2 (I think)...

The original NEF had your standard pixel size:
3008 x 2000.

Right. Easy.

After Genuine Fractals processing (GF), the size was:
9024 x 6000.

That's a multiplication of three.

That said, double is probably the recommended dosage, but depending on where the image is going to be displayed and the version you're using, essentially the sky's the limit.

That said, here are some nice links for people.
(And please don't use these images for yourself for random things. The last thing I want is for these pics to turn up somewhere being used by someone for their own personal or business-ish pleasure. This is to show you a comparison ONLY.)

This is a comparison of the full crops for people between the original NEF and the GF processed tif.
The TIF file size worked to this: the original NEF was around 35 meg whereas the GF processed TIF came to around 155 meg.

Original NEF (so you can see for yourself).
A bit over 1 meg, saved at a "Save for web" ratio of 70.

GF processed image (so you can see for yourself).
Around 8 meg, saved at a "Save for web" ratio of 70.

I'll leave them up there for the time being... I may watermark them later on if I feel a need or I might remove them if they become too much of a load for the server, though.

[stubbsy]

Leigh

This is VERY disturbing. Why did you want to make a blow up image of this particular subject (dare I ask )

Interesting examples though

[Greg B]

Apparently 35mm can fulfil this criteria - so exactly how far does digital photography have to go???

I've read that the general consensus is that 24mp would approximate 35mm (quality) film. 24mp is double the resolution of a 6mp D70....

Before you all say I've lost my marbles (again) as 6 x 2 = 12 not 24... To double the resolution you would need to halve the size of the pixels (let's ignore technological and noise issues for the moment). Therefore a 3000 x 2000 sensor would become 6000 x 4000 pixels...

3000 x 2000 = 6 million
6000 x 4000 = 24 million

Therefore, sometimes 6 x 2 = 24

Er, surely if the pixels were halved, it would be in one direction,
ie
3000 x 2000 = 6 mil
3000 x 4000 = 12 mil The pixels have been halved vertically.

If they are halved vertically and halved horizontally, then surely they
have been quartered. Which means that the resolution has been increased fourfold, and once again 6 x 4 = 24.

john?

[gstark]

This is a variation of the argument that an 8MP camera is better than a 6MP one.

First of all, not all pixels are equal: the CP8800 is an 8MP camera, as is the Canon 350D. While the 8800 produces some nice images, and has nice glass, in no way is it a match for the 350D, because of the size of the sensor in each case.

Let's now compare the D70, which is 6MP, with the D2X and its 12MP sensor.

Here both cameras are using a DX sensor, and roughly speaking, the sensors are the same size. But the D2X has roughly double the photosite density of the D70, uses different sensor technology (CMOS vs CCD) and produces results the belie the fact that it's only twice the photosite density.

One could argue that the D2x is capable of producing images equal in quality of a FF 35mm camera, but so too do the Canon FF DSLRs.

It's not just numbers, people.

[Alex]

Leigh,

Thank you very much for going to the trouble to explain. I'll check your images later from home (I'm at work atm). Sorry also for misspelling the hell out of the application name

It is also possible to increase size in PS without losing resolution by resumpling up but I guess you introduce other defects. There is a section in the Scott Kelby's book on how to resample up without much loss of quality, i.e. by using 10 % increments.

So basically, the GF program resumples up while keeping the resolution untouched but does so in a more intelligent way than just PS??

Thanks
Alex

[Nnnnsic]

Photoshop's inbuilt resampling is poor, and anyone recommending it for non-vector based work needs to re-check their way of dealing with images.

When Photoshop resamples and scales an image up, it does so by rounding off the pixels and hoping you won't notice.

Unfortunately, you can, and usually very easily.

[Alex]

Unfortunately??? Is it because you do it too often?

[Nnnnsic]

I like to test programs to their full ability.

It's something I had to do when I did some software testing and I always like looking for the weak point of applications.

That said, the current weak point of GF is that it won't work with CS2.

[Alex]

Thanks for uploading some samples, Leigh. Makes it clearer now.

Alex

[mudder]

G'day Andoru,
I've printed 16x24 from a D70 without interplation, but after PP a bit and came up sharp as a tack, above that though I'd probably go for int. pol. before final PP and print... Done larger dimensions but with stitched images...

[Marvin]

That said, the current weak point of GF is that it won't work with CS2.

It does now!

http://www.lizardtech.com/products/gf/

[mudder]

That said, the current weak point of GF is that it won't work with CS2.

It does now!
http://www.lizardtech.com/products/gf/

Oooohhhh, thanks for the tip... I'll go have a sticky...