Printing advice for this pic

[tim]

I'm thinking of getting this picture (http://mrwild.co.nz/Featured/TheNight/slides/IMG_6256_CRW.html) printed at A1 size, and i'm after a bit of advice. You can either give me your advice or whether you think it'll blow up well now or read on...

First, a bit of background. I had this photo (http://www.mrwild.co.nz/PhotoGallery/2004/NewYears/slides/CRW_4701.html) printed A1 size and it worked very, very well, without any kind of upsizing or tinkering, and now hangs on the wall of my lounge. It doesn't have a hell of a lot of fine detail though, so it was likely to be ok. At a meter or more away it looks great, and you rarely get that close to a pic that big.

How do you think that new photo (http://mrwild.co.nz/Featured/TheNight/slides/IMG_6256_CRW.html) will be at that size? It's a full frame from a 300D, taken in RAW, but a lot of the detail is very fine. For example, there's lots of small lights and reflections that when you zoom in are small groups of white or near white pixels. How will they be bigger?

Also, any advice on upsizing/sharpening this kind of print would be appreciated. I'm going to try upsizing in photoshop in one step, upsizing in 10% steps, using genuine fractals, and Kneson Imager, and see which looks best at 100%. After that i'll try the unsharp mask and a few actions in the TLR sharpening toolkit to see how it is.

It only costs about US$40 from frogprints.co.nz so if it doesn't work out there's not much lost.

[w10d]

Also, any advice on upsizing/sharpening this kind of print would be appreciated. I'm going to try upsizing in photoshop in one step, upsizing in 10% steps, using genuine fractals, and Kneson Imager, and see which looks best at 100%. After that i'll try the unsharp mask and a few actions in the TLR sharpening toolkit to see how it is.

With PS CS you could also try upsizing about 10% more than you need, using Bicubic smoother, then downsize to your final print size using Bicubic sharper. Often gives a better result than one step & with the sharper/smoother options now available, one step is usually better than 10% steps.

[Bodog]

Nice picture Tim. Althought there is a lot or fine detail, I don't think a picture of this type invites a close inspection, like a portrait, so most folks would probably "keep their distance" when viewing, especially by the size you're considering. I say go for it!
Have you tried something like "PhotoZoom" ? (http://www.trulyphotomagic.com/shortcut/site/content.php?page=home) It does a good job (although I haven't tried anything that large), and it offers several different re-sampling methods, and is pretty reasonably priced .

[tim]

Thanks Jim, w10d. I ended up trying the two products I mentioned, and didn't like either of them. I tried the 10% increment bicubic sharpener and the single step, and I preferred the look of the single step for this pic. Hope it comes out ok, I want more photos for my walls! I'll let yas all know how it works :)