Digital prints, max size

[vinny]

Funny... Well if I can make an 11x17 (more than ONE FOOT ACROSS) image at 300dpi without interpolation of a 35mm image then I can certainly make a 4 foot by 5 foot image from a 4x5... It's simple math...

Oh. You've got me there. Just math then. I've got prints that say otherwise so maybe my calculator will make them look better. Now if I can figure out how to mount a calculater on my scanning drum.

[Drew Wiley]

Has anyone ever met a mathematician who took good photographs? Maybe someone has. I haven't. But we all have different ideas of what a good print is supposed
to look like. Some people find the "moth smashed on a windshield" look to be perfectly acceptable. I don't. But like cell phone, calculators do have an analogous
practical application. They're nice and flat, and nice for skipping on ponds.

[paulr]

Here we go again.

The royal we.

[StoneNYC]

Ok I'm out, I'm not going to argue this point, I have a 3 foot print scanned in fuji chrome on my table, it looks great and was shot on 6x7 120 film, I cropped the top and bottom.

Point is, if I can do that with 6x7 it can be done with 4x5...

I did have it printed by Dwayne's which does chemical prints, so the archival quality is much higher, but printers can print at the same DPI (and higher) than my print, so stability aside, the actual image when viewed would be perfectly crisp for the OP if printer on a printer, so you be the judge...

[Leigh]

They don't make a digital ink jet printer big enough to max out from a 4x5 scan...

Sure they do.

At a trade show in New York a few years ago I saw a digital printer that would do an entire billboard in one pass, not in sections.

The size of the individual ink spots was huge, like an inch or more.

- Leigh

[Kirk Gittings]

Dwayne's which does chemical prints, so the archival quality is much higher.

Depends on the particular chemical print compared to what inkjet print. Some chemical prints are not very archival at all.

[David Luttmann]

OP said CHROME not CN films.

However Fuji chromes scan better than kodak, but they both scan decently. Kodachrome scans more difficultly. But if you have a 4x5 Kodachrome, I'm very jealous.

I realize that...I simply shared my experience.....as opposed to attitude. See the difference?

I find the opposite....Kodak scans smooth as opposed to Fuji pepper grain.

[StoneNYC]

I realize that...I simply shared my experience.....as opposed to attitude. See the difference?

I find the opposite....Kodak scans smooth as opposed to Fuji pepper grain.

Sorry, no attitude meant.

Are you talking Kodak E100G chrome film compared to Fuji Provia100F? Or are you talking Ektar100 compared to Provia100F? Because they scan differently and take different types of scanners for best results depending if you're scanning Chrome vs Color Negatives.

Anyway, sorry for the attitude :/

[selmslie]

The limit has nothing to do with the film or sensor format. It is simply a matter of how close the viewer gets to a print.

The first limitation is that the normal viewer cannot distinguish anything finer than 300 lines/pixels/dots per inch at 12 inches. Every time you double the distance you cut that number in half.

Normal viewing distance for an 8x10 image is about 20 inches (1-1/2 times the diagonal) and that requires only about 180 PPI or 2.5 MP. At 10 inches you would need over 300 PPI or about 10 MP.

Each time you double the print size without changing the viewing distance (or cut the viewing distance in half without changing the print size) you quadruple the number of required megapixels. But who is going to get within 20 inches of an 80x100 inch print?

Although 35mm full frame film or digital may be challenged to produce large prints that you can get close to, medium and large format film is not. So the only practical limitation is the printer.

[Leigh]

Normal viewing distance for an 8x10 image is about 20 inches (1-1/2 times the diagonal) and that requires only about 180 PPI or 2.5 MP. At 10 inches you would need over 300 PPI or about 10 MP.
Each time you double the print size without changing the viewing distance (or cut the viewing distance in half without changing the print size) you quadruple the number of required megapixels.

And at 5 inches you need 600 ppi and 40MP just to hit the minimum acceptable quality for "average" viewers.

But who is going to get within 20 inches of an 80x100 inch print?

Anybody who's not physiucally prevented from doing so.

People want to "see what there is to see". They spy a fine detail in the image, and want to see what else is there.

This whole idea of "normal viewing distance" is an invention of the digital imaging industry.

Before digital, when only silver imaging was in common use, that concept didn't exist because viewers could get
as close as they wanted and still find information, not individual pixels.

- Leigh