Upscaling what to do....

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Hi,

I'm asked to make some large prints, A2-A1 format.

I use Photoshop CS since a few weeks and I owned a version of Genuine Fractals, which I never used for this purpose (go figure :D).

I read somewhere that the upscaling found in Photoshop CS is better than in GF....

Is this true and if so, how to operate.

I guess loading in the RAW, directly making the upscaling and than the USM procedure.

What settings would you use, there are now so many, and I don't want to blow any prints.

Greetings,
Frank

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Frank,

There's been some discussion about this on the Rob Galbraith Forums. I haven't done any real testing with CS, but Andrew Rodney claims there is little difference between the different methods. On some images, one method may give a little better result than others and vice versa.

I have GF, but never use much because I don't care for the painterly effect that it often gives. Of course, you won't really notice this looking at an A1 print from the other size of the room. :)

If you are converting from using using CS, I would upsize in conversion.

If you are upsizing in PS CS itself, my inclination would be to use incremental upsizing with bicubic smoother chosen.

It is definitely better to stay in 16-bit, if your PC can manage it, and most definitely sharpen after upsizing.

It would be a good idea to take crops of the upsized image, so you can test different sharpening options. This will (a) save paper because you can print only small samples, and (b) save time re-doing sharpening on big images because you didn't like the first result. :)

Regards,

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Roger,
That is some great advice about the cropping, I never thought about that :D.

I allready noticed the paintery effect when zooming in real close.

I found a printer (large chain) who will make real photoprints (no posters) at 50x75 cm for only € 6,50 so I delivered them 3 shots to see what will happen.

Greetings,
Frank

[chris.bailey]

I have done a couple of very large (A0) prints shot in RAW and upsized during conversion in CS. At close zooms It seems better than GF but dont oversharpen and keep in 16 bit if at all possible. I was very pleased with the A0 prints I had done for work, you only see pixelation if you go really close.

[stardis]

What about the increase image size by 10% over and over until you get the size you want?

[fwhitesides]

I work for a magazine, and we've used Extensis pxl SmartScale with good results. In the last instance, we needed a headshot of an executive, and the only image the company gave us was a web-ready photo that was only 1.5x2 inches (not very professional at all). We used pxl SmartScale to pump up the image from 72dpi at 1.5x2 to 300dpi at 4x6. The results were good. Not oustanding, but it got the job done. Then again, none of us were experts with the software, so I'm sure better results are possible.

pxl SmartScale works as a plugin within Photoshop, by the way:
http://www.extensis.com/pxlsmartscale/index.html