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Preparing for print... how dop YOU do it?

Daniel Harrison

pro member
Tell us how you would prepare a file for print from YOUR camera. whether it comes from a 4mp D2H or a 17mp 1Ds mkII.

Here is your situation
You want to print a 16x20, what process do you use to get it done. First tell us what you would do to any file and then go into the specifics of your camera. Would you upres, USM, smartsharpen, add grain, remove noise.

This could be a great reference thread. when replying please use the reply button and in the subject line put something like this "preparing a XX file for print" where XX is your specific camera.

Looking forward to some interesting information.
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
he.. he.... there was a reason I asked ;-) I have never printed anything that big! I do have some tips from others, but I have not tried it. I may post them later.
 

Alain Briot

pro member
I personally follow an 18 step process to go from Raw file to final print. There are adjustments for the exact file size, but those only affect 3 of these steps: resizing, cleanup and sharpening.
 

Alain Briot

pro member
I am more than willing to share it but I can't do it briefly. It takes me two days to go over it in my Expressive Print seminar. Not easy to do on a forum...
 

Stan Jirman

New member
Personally, I don't do all that much "scientific" stuff as some people around here do. I always start with a raw file, convert that to 16-bit Wide Gamut RGB with my raw converter of choice (usually C1, with exceptions). Then I open it in PSCS2 and start cleaning up the sensor dust, bad CA if present, maybe do some light "Shadow/Highlight" (very slight, not a big fan of this tool, esp. since so many people are using it these days to such an extent that we get absurd looking images). Then I save this "raw" image for posterity =)

Now the 2nd step starts, print pre-processing. First I crop / pad to desired aspect ratio. Then I upsample in PS in one step using "Bicubic Smoother" to target size, 200dpi.

With this image, I once again do a once over looking for sensor turds that may have been overlooked before. Then I sharpen the image using USM - and that's where I go purely by gut feeling: I choose radius based on the upsampling factor that I've used, typically in the 1.0 - 3.0 range; then adjust Intensity to a level that "it just borderline hurts" - as in, it should look oversharpened on screen, but not too violently. Ink jet printers need more oversharpening than the LightJet.

The last step before printing is a Gamma adjustment of 1.05 ~ 1.15, depending on the printer. This is why it's neat that Aperture has this control built into the print panel :). The gamma value has to do with the fact that paper doesn't glow (yet, anyway) so typically an image on screen looks brighter than on paper, esp. given the lighting conditions where the image will be hanging; even a custom profile can't account for this because it doesn't know how bright it will be on the "target wall", all spectrometers use a constant light source.

Then I cross my fingers and print.

I have printed using this low tech approach pretty large pictures; 24x36 is commonplace for me, 60x40 has been done, too, from 1Ds, 1Ds2, and P45 cameras. The results are quite convincing, at least to me.

I don't like to get caught up in technical discussions about sharpening in 10 small steps vs. one big one; I don't discount the possibility that there's a difference, but I have never seen a compelling difference yet, plus I am an advocate of "proper viewing distance": Nobody is looking at my 60x40 pictures with a loupe, but more often from 5ft or more. At that distance, it doesn't really matter what sharpening technique I used, but rather what's the content of the image and how its execution / basic post processing was.
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
Thanks Stan- that was really useful information! I was especially interested in the gamma, I will remember that next time I get a print done!
Thanks!
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
Alain Briot said:
I am more than willing to share it but I can't do it briefly. It takes me two days to go over it in my Expressive Print seminar. Not easy to do on a forum...

No - I guess not.. :) Sounds like a very detailed process. Thanks!
 

Sid Jervis

pro member
Stan,
I like your style, terms like "sensor turds", "lightjet" and one of the most important terms for me "proper viewing distance" are good to hear.
They define where you are coming from, practicality. While I do appreciate that technical issues matter, sometimes long technical discussions distance me from what I want to do, photography.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Stan and Alain show that there are different ends of the spectrum in everything!

Stan wants you to start without deference to imagined barriers.

Alain, from experience, knows that some images can be expressed further.

I appreciate both approaches. Stan, BTW, is, by no means, a casual image processor.

Alain's a classically trained artist and teacher. His student's feel more than satisfied in their effort to get more instruction.

I support both paths. I would say for myself, I have perfect prints from jpgs out of the camera for events where lighting was controlled.

Some images I work on may take 30 or 50 or many times more steps from RAW to completion. I lhave no idea!

It all depends on your needs, imagination and how much effort you can invest. If the light is perfect, the trees will be fully dimensional, the golden light will open the tree structure and the hills in the distance will fade by layers of increasing faintness and obscurity.

That, however, requires great luck or time stalking the changing light.

So, for the rest of us, isolating image subsections in PS is required and such effort can take us much of the way to that rare perfectly lit moment.

To me going to print really is a matter of allocation of our time resources.

I welcome Stan's immediate help. I would suggest some additonal pointers:

Layers for adjustments, of course!

Add a duplicate layer with local contrast enhanced with Unsharp mask at about 15%, 20 pixels and 0-2 levels.

Always try to reduce whatever change a level makes. After you think it's perfect, often, a more subtle change is best. Further, experiment with blending back with 1-7 % of the original to ask your self if you can get more integrity.

A hint: print small sections as you work on the image. That saves time and money.

Asher
 
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Sid Jervis

pro member
Please do not misunderstand my post, I need to be clearer in what I say.

The big plus is that there are differing views on all subjects, and the good news is that in OPF we have access to the wide range of views/skills.
I try to be open to all options, but sometimes I do not have the luxury of spare time, we all have to make decisions about how we allocate our resources.

When I stop learning, I'll be dead.
$0.02
 

Nill Toulme

New member
I am largely a sports and event rather than fine art photographer, and while I have a moderately critical eye, I'm not in the same universe with someone like Alain when it comes to printing, nor probably in the same neighborhood with most of the other folks here. But for what it's worth, the latter 2/3 to 3/4 of what used to be a long and drawn out process for me, involving multiple steps with PK Sharpener, resizing and resampling, etc., has for the past year or so been replaced with one word: Qimage.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net
 

JimCollum

pro member
I usually add a layer of 'grain' to the images. I'm often printing at large sizes, for a display environment where proper viewing distance ranges from 10 feet to 'nose to glass'. When viewing 'reality', there is always a percieved level of detail that continues on beyone what the eye can see. Adding this layer of grain can give the perception of micro-detail, rather than the smoothness that is often at the 100% size. In addtion to this texture/micro-detail, the grain enhances the perception of sharpness.

jim
 

Daniel Harrison

pro member
Hi Jim, I have another friend who also suggests you add some grain for the same reasons you mentioned. I tried it and I think in a large print it would indeed improve the image, I think it also makes it look more like a film print. (not sure if that is a good thing or not :)
 

Ray West

New member
For landscape,

from Canon raw, into CS2 using adobe raw convertor, (Prophoto RGB, usually)with default settings, but with the gamut warnings selected). Straighten horizon, whatever, then crop if required. Then adjust levels (maybe curves, layers, filters, if I'm really interested), sometimes a Velvia action, then save as tif.

Open tif in qimage and print. All sharpening, upsizing is better handled by qimage, than in CS2, afaik.

I am working on this, however, maybe use dpp, then see how much I can do in Qimage editor, to avoid Photoshop. Sometimes the layers/channels in ps are useful, however.

Best wishes,

Ray

for sp :)
 
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