Are big prints just little prints made bigger?

[Paul Butzi]

It might help a bit to define what 'big' is.

Some folks are talking about 16"x20" as being big, and I think of a print with an image size of 16x20 as a relatively small print - the portfolios I just made to carry around and show people are 16x20 prints in 18x24 portfolios, and I don't think of them as small but I don't think of them as large, either.

30" x 38" is getting large. 40" x 50" is definitely large.

Local contrast issues are different for a 40x50 print, but not as much as you might expect. Sharpening is an issue as well, as you point out.

And there are other, more pragmatic issues with large prints. Anything larger than, say, 25x32 is going to require a frame and mat larger than 32x40, which is the largest commonly carried mat board size. Prints larger than 32" x 40" or so won't even fit on the larger, expensive but available 40x60 matboard, and framing and glazing are starting to get really expensive. When you're up to 40"x50", not only is it a challenge to mount and frame (things like mounting on superthick foamcore become really appealing) but most homes don't even have a decent place to display a print that size.

[Richard Littlewood]

Are there any large neg makers out there that like big prints?

[Al Seyle]

I have always felt they should be scaled to the room similar to the way an interior designer scales furniture to the room. For example, 8x10's mounted or not in a hotel lobby would be silly.

[Tedd]

I shoot 12x20 and do mostly environmental portraiture.
Already shoot HP5 and am waiting for 5 boxes of 12x20 Portra 160 NC to arrive.
I, together with a Pro fininshing lab whom specializes in monster prints have almost finished an 20x24 hoirzontal color enlarger here in Stockholm.
My idea of a BIG print is the maximum possible size of 1,2x2 meters for B&W and 1,6x3 meters for color!
When it is finished services with this enlarger are available to anyone.

I find that portraits of people taken with an ULF camera should be enlarged. The persons soul tends to come out more due to the incredible detail.

[Hiro]

IMVHO, the issue of “proper viewing distance (PVD)” jj brought up is quite important.

For the benefit of learning photographers like myself, PVD equals the diagonal of the image, provided no cropping, where you can view the image just like the lens saw it and the photographer saw it on the GG when the image was made, so to speak. PVD may also be dictated by human nature or our brain's processing logic. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

You set the tripod at a particular point because you liked best how it looked from there, then wouldn’t deviating from PVD mean distorting the “perfect” composition? In addition to the “which part to look” or “can’t see the details” issues, perceived convergence is affected by the viewing distance (felt weak if close and pronounced if far). This may be a big issue for certain types of works.

Off course I’m not at all against the views based on artistic interpretations, subject matter, personal preference, etc. I agree with them. I’ve learned certain rules still apply when creating a good/pleasing presentation.

[ronald moravec]

Depends on the image. A snail shell need not be large. But a sailing ship and ocean waves needs to be larger to be effective. Complex images generally need to be larger. Simple ones smaller.

Each one seems to have a size or range of sizes that work well.

[paulr]

"Print size is a very personal thing. Every print seems to have an optimum size. Some look good large and some look good small."

I find this to be very true, and am frustrated by photographers who don't see the interaction between size and a particular image.

what's most interesting to me is that some images do work at different sizes, but when they do, they often become different images ... in the sense that they become about something different. different aspects become emphaized at different scales, and different ways of the viewer interacting become encouraged. only once or twice have i made an image that would look equally good big and small, and that would be equally interesting to me at either size. it's been tough in these cases making up my mind ... it's like having to choose between two completely diferent pictures.

[FpJohn]

Hello: The bigger the print the more information required. My 35mm and 6x9 prints are seldom larger than 6"x9" or 8x12. Anything larger is spreading the butter thin over a larger piece of bread.
yours
Frank

[John_4185]

For the benefit of learning photographers like myself, PVD equals the diagonal of the image, provided no cropping, where you can view the image just like the lens saw it and the photographer saw it on the GG when the image was made, so to speak. PVD may also be dictated by human nature or our brain's processing logic. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

I've read that the nominal PVD is 10" because that's where the human eye can resolve the most detail. In this measure, it has nothing to do with esthetics, but just simple metrics for other purposes.

[Bruce Watson]

Interesting question -- one I've thought about a fair bit myself. What I've found for my work is that much depends on the scale of the subject. Basically, I let the image tell me what size it wants to be printed. So flowers get printed fairly small. Big vista get printed big (up to about 125 x 100 cm (50 x 40 in)).

My experience also is that printing large requires some different techniques over printing small. This has to do with human perception, and how the eye/brain system perceives color differently depending on the area. IOW, large blocks of tone or color seem to be different than smaller blocks of the exact same tone or color. Human visual perception and the spectrophotometer don't always match.

This phenomenon may be familiar to people who have done some house painting. Some paints seem amazingly intense in the can, but much less so on the wall. Some colors seem weak in the can, and are overpowering on the wall.

Consider B&W for a minute. When you scale up the print, you scale up the shadow areas. This tends to "open up" the shadows a bit more -- you can see more detail in the shadows that looked black in the smaller print. This makes that part of the print feel lighter. Interestingly, this isn't always a good thing. Sometimes you don't want that detail, what you want is a black that doesn't distract. Sadly, you don't see these scale-related changes until you proof at full size.

On the highlight end, I find a somewhat similar phenomena. As those little chunks of highlights grow in size, so does their ability to attract the eye. What once added sparkle to the print now adds glare.

What I'm saying is, as your print changes in scale, some of the color and tonal relationships change in scale as well. How you handle this is up to you of course.