Will it print?

Hey everyone, I'm looking to print the following photo at 24"x36"... I've already got a frame.

Unfortunately, this photo I took has already been cropped, is handheld, and a bit noisy. Before I spend the $35 on the print (through Smugmug - I've had great results in the past) I wanted to get some feedback.

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Depends on what you consider acceptable. Is it a raw file? You could probably clean up some of the noise if it is. It is a nice shot.

It is a bit noisy, but a 24x36 print will most likely be viewed from 3' or greater, so you would not notice the noise. However, I downloaded the original and applied some moderate noise reduction and thought it took very well, without any degradation in sharpness. So I'd recommend a little noise reduction before printing.

At 24x36 you will get 130ppi. That's a bit low, but acceptable at the +3 foot viewing distance. Given the quality of the image I would recommend printing at that ppi instead of trying to uprez. Uprezing will amplify the noise and softness that is already there.

If you are going to invest in such a prominent print, I'd recommend a few tweaks first.

1. Try to knock down the burned out highlights in the window behind the cockpit and the floor under the plane. Try a Levels adjustment, and simply slide the white "output level" slider (not the histogram sliders) to the left. Add a black mask and then roughly paint in the adjustment with soft brush.

2. Clone out the bright sections on the top left (above and below the catwalks). I grabbed a section of the gray squares from the right of the plane and transformed, patched, and masked them in the one section behind the man on the catwalk. Looked good. Just cloning the other small section from the dark area above it is OK.

3. Clone out the spotlights on the middle catwalk.

4. Increase the overall contrast. You already have clipped blacks in the catwalks and engine cowling, but that's OK. But a little more darkening of the background and a litte brightening of the golden "V" on the plane nose makes the image more dramatic.

5. If you are really ambitious, you might try to clone out the windows behind the cockpit instead of using Levels to darken them. That big white area in the middle of the image is a major distraction. Cloning would be difficult and time consuming, trying to borrow from the roof section above the windows, but might be worth it.

That, unfortunately, is impossible. You can upload it at its present dimensions, but Smugmug's RIP will uprez it to meet the requirements of their printer, maybe 250 ppi but more likely 300 ppi.

There is nothing wrong with letting Smugmug do it, they will undoubtably do a good job, but the control freaks among us (I'm one of them) will prefer to do it themselves. At any rate, you can see an approximate preview of how it will look by cropping out an important and representative section and saving it as a tif. Then enlarge it by 2.3X (if your crop is 600x900 make it 1380x2070) and sharpen it a bit. Next, assuming your monitor is around 100 ppi, view it at 33% (1:3) and stand back from the screen. This will give you a rough idea of how your 24x36 inch print will look.

Thanks for all the input everyone!

I'm finding the BG extremely busy. In addition to the above suggested darkening, I'd do some blurring.

Here is my edit all done in LR
-blurred background (-100 sharpness adjustment brush)
-reduced highlights slider to -100 and whites slider to -100
-increased contrast (it's at 45 right now)
-decreased local exposure on spot lights on walkway next to the cockpit (adjustment brush)
-applied noise reduction (45 luminance, 60 detail, 30 contrast)

What do you guys think? I think it looks a bit better but I do think it could use some more background blur - I'm just not sure how to achieve this in LR beyond what I've done

Before:

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For the background blur using Lightroom only, try some negative clarity instead of negative sharpness.

Pesonally, I prefer the original contrast everywhere but where highlights are blown out.

OP, you need to change your POTN profile to have 'Image editing OK'. I did some changes and have some crops of a small area, to show the benefit of denoise, unsharp mask, and then upres of the photo, with additional digital camera noise reduction, but I won't post any of the examples until you alter your profile suitably.

Redcrown wrote in post #15150182
Personally, I prefer the original contrast everywhere but where highlights are blown out.

I prefer the original overall, except maybe for the floor. The -100 highlights adds contrast to the few things that aren't blown in the window, making them stand out even more…

OP, aren't you curious about 100% crop sections of the image, and how much improvement I could obtain in your photo? Update your profile to 'Image Editing OK' and I can post examples while remaining compliant with POTN regs.

Wilt wrote in post #15154835
OP, aren't you curious about 100% crop sections of the image, and how much improvement I could obtain in your photo? Update your profile to 'Image Editing OK' and I can post examples while remaining compliant with POTN regs.

Sorry - long day at work!
I've made the change

Everyone else thanks for the feedback! It looks like I have a lot more editing to do

"I am but an egg"

Here is 100% crop of the original image

Redcrown wrote in post #15145489
If you are going to invest in such a prominent print, I'd recommend a few tweaks first.

1. Try to knock down the burned out highlights in the window behind the cockpit and the floor under the plane. Try a Levels adjustment, and simply slide the white "output level" slider (not the histogram sliders) to the left. Add a black mask and then roughly paint in the adjustment with soft brush.

2. Clone out the bright sections on the top left (above and below the catwalks). I grabbed a section of the gray squares from the right of the plane and transformed, patched, and masked them in the one section behind the man on the catwalk. Looked good. Just cloning the other small section from the dark area above it is OK.

3. Clone out the spotlights on the middle catwalk.


5. If you are really ambitious, you might try to clone out the windows behind the cockpit instead of using Levels to darken them. That big white area in the middle of the image is a major distraction. Cloning would be difficult and time consuming, trying to borrow from the roof section above the windows, but might be worth it.

This is a quick edit. It could be better with more effort and somebody more skilled.

Here is another edit.