Help on UpResing for 20 ft. Print

[David A. Goldfarb]

Duggal in New York does this sort of work routinely. www.duggal.com

[phil sweeney]

Thanks for your input Bruce. I have tried to contact Andy Anderson Photography and they told us that they have never done prints that big and do not know the best way to prepare the images to the size we need them. The best advice he gave us was to open them in photoshop and start upressing them manually through the 'image size' window. Too bad that wasn't very helpful to us.

Anyways, the process in which I used to begin upresing the images was opening one of the image files in Photoshop (4.616 inches x 3.637 inches at 1800 PPI), then going to 'image -> image size' then unchecking 'Resample Image' then setting the PPI to 300 which makes the document 27.697 inches Wide automatically. From there, I cut it down to 27 inches Wide, then crop the image to exactly 27 inches x 9.45 inches (exact proportion to the final size of 20 feet x 7 feet). From there, I open up the Genuine Fractal plugin and then start increasing the image size at about 150% at a time until it is finally 10 feet x 3.5 feet.

I'm wondering if I am doing the right thing by setting the original image resolution to 300 at the start with the 'Resample Image' unchecked.

Anyways, any other help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you guys once again.

I know of one poster shop that downsizes any file to 90 dpi for output, regardless of your image file. I guess their point is they make posters not print art. If you change your original to 100 dpi that would yield 5.4 feet by 6.9 feet. Now that would probably make a decent poster but smaller than your desired output. I looked at genuine fractals before though I do not use it, I think you will find that after you make your file a gen frac file you only use the gen frac controls thereafter. Try printing a small area for proofs.

[Ron Marshall]

You might want to print a 16x20 crop at the final poster resolution to see how it will look at that resolution.

[illy]

Thanks for all of your input.

As for proofs, we did get a strip from each poster that measured 7 feet tall by about 2 feet wide. I'm asking for help because they did not turn out very well and the pixelation was very noticeable from a distance of 10-15 feet.

So, from the input, it seems like there is no real way for me to do it and only a professional would know the correct steps to take. If I am missing or messing up a step anywhere, it would be great if someone would let me know because we spent a fortune on purchasing these images to begin with, and we would rather not spend more trying to get another person to resize these images if it is possible to do in-house.

Anyways, thank you all again for taking the time to read this post. It has been very helpful thus far.

[SAShruby]

10-15 feet away? That is 3 to 5 meters only. If you take a picture 30x40 inches or paint, ideal distance is 2 - 3 meters. I would suggest smaller image at higher ppi or longer distance. Other suggestion would be not to crop it until final width size and then crop top and bottom.

Anyway my calculation shows 4.616 * 1800 ppi / 240 (20*12inch) = 34.62 PPI, which is too low. Even if you would size it to 10 feet wide you will get 69 ppi and then you need to work with Genuine fractal to increase it by 100%. I think it is too much for fractal increase and having same sharpenss and lok. I would not got under 70-80 ppi from 10-15 feet view distance.

[illy]

I looked at genuine fractals before though I do not use it, I think you will find that after you make your file a gen frac file you only use the gen frac controls thereafter.

Actually, Genuine Fractals works as a filter/plug-in on my Photoshop. I simply select it from the menu bar at the top and resize the image to whatever size I need while still keeping the file a .psd, .tif, etc.

[phil sweeney]

Actually, Genuine Fractals works as a filter/plug-in on my Photoshop. I simply select it from the menu bar at the top and resize the image to whatever size I need while still keeping the file a .psd, .tif, etc.

Hi illy,

Sounds like it does not really do what they claim?

[robc]

if you can't get the original source to supply you with a scan of the correct res for the job in hand, then get a repro lab to output the image to a high quality gloss print at 10x8 and then re-photograph the print at 1:1 onto 10x8 tranny and scan the resulting tranny. You should get no pixelation but it may be a little soft although you should be able to sharpen to sort that. With the 10x8 tranny and a good drum scan you will have plenty of dpi. Current ICG scanners go to 12000 dpi. I think you would need approx 6000+ dpi scan to give the size you want at 300dpi print res.

[edit]

correction, you would need to scan 10x8 tranny at near 7200dpi to get to your 20' print at 300dpi.

[/edit]

[illy]

Hi illy,

Sounds like it does not really do what they claim?

Well, i'm not gonna blame this on Genuine Fractals. It works great for image enlargements up to 400% of it's original size. But the sheer size that we are trying to get out of such a small image, it's just an extreme enlargement. But the first few times I ran the filter (to about 400%), the ouput looked very good.

[robc]

I think (but am not 100% certain) that old versions of PS were very poor at upsizing so enter Genuine Fractals. Then PS got better and I'm not convinced there s any benefit of GF over PS nowadays. You should try upsing in PS using "bicubic smoother" and compare to GF. I assume you have PS CS or higher.