DPP noise reduction & image size. Bug or feature?

I write this up FYI, but also because any advice is welcome

I have an image, that needs to be printed Big (1,4x3,0 meters)
Since shooting circumstances were less then ideal (as usual), there is quite a bit work to be done, and I'ld like to get an as good as possible result.
This is the image:

Very sharp picture. Well taken. Sorry I am not a PS expert so cant help you in that.

For those interested: Here is the A4 version as a quality 12 jpg.
100% crops Here (5 parts of heads on 1 A4)

Maximum file size I reached was around 2,5 Gb, so yes, I definately got enough coffee

Picture isn't all that sharp (lens was fully opene, there is motion blurr, focus isn't spot on), so the sharpening was difficult, because mostly the noise got sharpened way more then the persons.

If anybody has any tips, I'm all ears!

Fantastic picture - I love it!

Afraid, like gosh, I'm not expert enough in processing to be able to help either. There used to be a photoshop plugin called General Fractals that claimed to be able to enlarge pictures to much bigger sizes without much loss of quality, but I haven't used it so can't really comment on how well or otherwise it works.

Thanks!
Tried a few different ways of upscaling in PS; from the original 1D2 file to 300cm at 100dpi:
in 1 step using Bicubic Smoother, in 10% increments, using bicubic Smoother, and finally, after searchin these forums, I tried 10% increments, twice bicubic Smoother, once bicubic sharper (repeated as often as needed). The '3 step method' gave marginally better results.
Still, starting off with a 9999x6666 pixels file was best. That's kind of a large file in 16bpc

and god said, use noise ninja, and he did, and got beautifully smooth, detailed results

Yeah, that might work... Problem is, I don't have Noise Image or Neat Image... (downloaded the trial version, which works on 1024x1024 px maximum, so not much use to evaluate with. I might buy it in the future, but mostly, I'm not that obsessed with noise. If anything, I mostly find myself *adding* noise)
I gave PS 'Noise Reduction' a try, but that mostly softened the image, and didn't remove much noise, probabely because the noise was a lot bigger then 'pixel level' due to the extreme enlargement...

ok here is the a4 100% crops put through a slight reduction in noise ninja. i put reduction low to keep as much detail as possible.

click here

Thanks. This is too much noise reduction for me though.... Also it leaves in the noise I'ld most like to get rid off, and removes the finer noise. Just like Photoshop's noise reduction did. Looses *a lot* of detail IMHO.
Of course NN did a splendid job removing the noise I had put on top of the image
IIRC a friend of mine has Noise Ninja, I'll give it a try on the High res file before adding noise. (Good thing he also has a dual G5 )

i see, well if you compare them directly, i dont think there is much detail lost, but to each there own.

Rene -
You may be interested in trying this technique:
http://www.outbackphot​o.com/workflow/wf_60/e​ssay.html
I've never done it myself - I don't use PSCS - but I have seen it praised on several other forums.
Elie

Thanks!
Interesting read... That was about the only way to upsize in PS I had *not* tried
I'll give it a try.

you ever tried genuine fractals?

Nope. Googled it though, and looks okay. Don't know if it's going to be a lot better then the version upsized in DPP, but I'm going to give it a try...
Thanks.

I have a wimpier computer than yours, and though it groans and complains when I scan my large format negatives, it can handle it.

I'd first say, upscale your image in RAW. A 10-15% enlargement in the RAW converter is probably a more accurate interpolation than doing it later in PS (because there's so much more pixel information). I'd then reduce noise before doing any further upscaling. I often run a median filter at 1 pixel and then fade it to 15-20%. You can also go to LAB color and slightly blur your A and B channels to reduce color noise.

The next steps will be gradual upscaling, probably using bicubic sharper, and doing regional sharpening at each stage.

I'd use high radius-low amount sharpening (like unsharp mask with amount 20 and radius 20-50) to sharpen big enlargements without getting too much artifact.

Just only upscale by around 10% at each step until you get to the desired pixel count.