20x30 dRebel

[BrandonSi]

I ended up with a decent shot I'd like to get printed out at 20x30 (mpix, probably) but I had a question on the photo prep..

The shot is in RAW, using CaptureOne I corrected wb, exposure and then generated the tiff (~18mb). In PS I adjusted curves. I'm going to get this done in 8x10 to check the fine detail (i know i'll lose portion in the crop, it's ok) and if there's some noise present I'll run it though neatimage, and reprint. Once I'm satisfied with the detail /color of the 8x10 I'll send it off for the 20x30.. the question is, is this 18mb tiff going to be enough for mpix? Do I need to upsize? I don't have the picture with me but I was pretty sure after CaptureOne got done with it, it was at 300dpi.. If I do need to upsize, can anyone point me in the general direction of a good process?

Also.. where are you guys getting frames for 3:2 format shots? Especially larger ones like 20x30? Custom frame shops?

Brandon

[Scottes]

I would take the current image an upsize it first, then take some 4x6 @300 DPI crops out of it. I'd crop an important color area, an important sharpness area, etc. I'd then duplicate these 4x6 images and play with using different strengths of sharpening/saturation/etc. On each image I'd add some text specifying the options you used, so you can easily tell which image had which settings. So now you can run 10+ tests at 4x6 for the cost of a single 8x10, or close.

There are some threads around here all about uprezzing - search for "uprez" and "upsize" and "interpolation" and I think you should find a few discussions which should give you some insight into upsizing. My opinion - It depends on the image. No upsize method will make *every* image look it's best. Take a small crop, like 500x500, and upsize it to 1500x1500 and see which method works best for your image.

[BrandonSi]

Thanks.. good idea with the 4x6. I'll check out those threads on uprez/upsize.

[MT]

at mpix (actually the company that owns mpix) - if your image meets their guidelines for pixels/size - you should let them do the upsizing. If you have cropped the image so that mpix won't let you select 20x30 - then you would need to upsize before uploading it.

[tim]

Good idea on the crops Scottes, i'm going to get a 20*30 printed soon myself. I do remember reading somewhere that it's best to let the lab do the upsizing for you, they're probably used to doing it and have good equipment/software - but don't take my word for it. Maybe email mpix and see what they say.

[Scottes]

I can't agree with letting the lab upsize - you lose control of the process. Are they going to upsize using an algorithm that suits the image? Final sharpening should be done at the print size - how do you know how the final sharpening will be done? Chances are good that they'll use 1 set upsize routine for all images, and the same for sharpening if they do sharpening.

I like to retain as much control as possible, so I do everything myself, as much as possible. It does make some things harder - like transferring a 100 meg file vs a 10 meg file - but I can deal with those things. And if something goes wrong, I have only myself to blame.

Note, too, that the sample 4x6s you get back will give you a real good idea of what setting to use for any images sent to mpix. Within a bit of reason, these sample images only need to be done once.

[toddb]

People swear that if you upsize 10% increments at a time you'll get better results. I read that in the book somewhere too that said that when upsizing big.

[Scottes]

A discussion about "Enlarging (Interpolating) in Steps Degrades Digital Images" involving several people, with samples from a few of us.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37151&highlight=Enlarging+Interpolating


I made some prints using some of the techniques from above. No samples, just conclusions.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37558


Here's one test I did using 6 different upsizing techniques. No samples in this one - you'll just have to trust my conclusions. :)
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=37747


I thought there was another with samples, but I can't find it...