GH2 Can I enlarge GH2 stills to 34 x 30 ?

downsouthstudio

downsouthstudio

Active member
Im new to photography...so be kind :cry:

I took a photo with my Gh2 and the client ordered a 16 x 20 print.....turned out to be beautiful.
Now she wants a large 34 x 30.....
How can I tell, without ordering first, if the resolution of the large print will be OK?

I have photoshop and PaintPro... I cropped the pic to 100% on a 34x30 canvas and it looks pixelated...but so did the 16 x 20..which turned out great.

help...

jeff
 
Sure you can. But make sure it hangs were there is forced viewing distance. Meaning, it won't look good in a hallway. If the viewer see's it from a minimum of 10 feet or so, it will look fine. I've had many 11mp and 16mp images on billboards. And they look great, FROM the freeway.
Not sure if you have a Costco where you live. But see if they have a large format printer. Mine has the Epson 9600 and I get large prints there on the cheap and they look awesome.
 
dustylense said:
Sure you can. But make sure it hangs were there is forced viewing distance. Meaning, it won't look good in a hallway. If the viewer see's it from a minimum of 10 feet or so, it will look fine. I've had many 11mp and 16mp images on billboards. And they look great, FROM the freeway.
Not sure if you have a Costco where you live. But see if they have a large format printer. Mine has the Epson 9600 and I get large prints there on the cheap and they look awesome.
Click to expand...

This is a family portrait, and will be hung in a large family room...should work then,
Thanks....I normally deal with Roes.whcc............they do a great job. Will give the large print a try.
jeff
 
downsouthstudio said:
This is a family portrait, and will be hung in a large family room...should work then,
Thanks....I normally deal with Roes.whcc............they do a great job. Will give the large print a try.
jeff
Click to expand...

You will get the best prints from MPIX (www.mpix.com). They used to operate as Millers Professional Color Service in the film days. They turned my studio down for an account in the '80s because my lab dollar volume was not high enough, they were "picky" but you got pretty much PERFECT prints from them.

With the changeover to digital in professional environment they came down "off their high horse" but DID NOT DROP STANDARDS. And they take in work from pretty much anyone.

My advice: If your client is going that big a print I would NOT TAKE A CHANCE on store labs.

The largest print MPIX lists is a 24x36 for $44.95, "lustre" coating adds $6 and change, and I don't have time right now to find their mounting charges, but you can. I order everything 11x14 and larger with lustre coating and dry mounted. Drops right in a good frame and looks professional.

I upload my images cropped to size at 230 dpi and get prints that match the standards I was used to in my studio.

Good luck.
 
Take a "Chance" on store labs? It's an inkjet printer. I have 30x40s made for less than $25. I once went in to costco and this other photographer was having a large print made of the Epson 9600. It was a wedding shot. She must have had 5 or 6 prints of the same shot laid out before her with the lab tech. She was unhappy with the color and wanted them corrected. After she left I asked the tech who I know well what the story was. He said that the lady was difficult and obviously knew nothing of calibration of monitors and such. He HAD to do as she asked because Costco's policy is that they have to print until the customer is happy. I mean, these were the photographers mistakes. Minor shifts of contrast and such.

If any of you have a costco near you, go in and give them a try. Get to know the techs. It's the least expensive and best quality you can get.
The reason I use them is that my buddy turned me on to them. And if this guy can back them, anyone can. sebreephoto.com
 
My friend had a canvas print done by costco with a photo I took. 3, 20x30 canvas prints. I didn't see any pixelation up close, but that could have been due to the canvas printing, not exactly high resolution. It was also a photo of a city skyline so pixels are probably easier to hide than faces. I think a 34x30 print should be fine.
 
downsouthstudio said:
Im new to photography...so be kind :cry:

I took a photo with my Gh2 and the client ordered a 16 x 20 print.....turned out to be beautiful.
Now she wants a large 34 x 30.....
How can I tell, without ordering first, if the resolution of the large print will be OK?

I have photoshop and PaintPro... I cropped the pic to 100% on a 34x30 canvas and it looks pixelated...but so did the 16 x 20..which turned out great.

help...

jeff
Click to expand...

At 36x30, the GH-2 will give about 120 pixels per inch, at the highest still image size setting. This is on the low side of resolution. A Nikon D800 has about 2x that resolution, so would yield an image that would have about 200 ppi.

The Nikon costs a good deal more...

The rule of thumb is to have about 300 pixels per inch for prints. However, 200 ppi can be 'ok' in many situations. For example a portrait mounted over a sofa, means people aren't typically going to be walking up to it and pixel peep.
 
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Being a newbie with photoshop, Im wondering "how" you judge your print resolution. (I do calibrate my monitor)
My work flow has been....shoot in RAW, dump into Lightroom 4 to develop, and then output a jpeg at highest quality setting. I then import into photoshop for any "effects" etc. I understand "each" time I make a change and "save", Im resampling the photo and hurting the quality....correct? Would it be best to export out of Lightroom a PSP or tiff then import into photoshop?....Im sure I have my workflow wrong.....thanks for the help.
 
downsouthstudio said:
Being a newbie with photoshop, Im wondering "how" you judge your print resolution. (I do calibrate my monitor)
My work flow has been....shoot in RAW, dump into Lightroom 4 to develop, and then output a jpeg at highest quality setting. I then import into photoshop for any "effects" etc. I understand "each" time I make a change and "save", Im resampling the photo and hurting the quality....correct? Would it be best to export out of Lightroom a PSP or tiff then import into photoshop?....Im sure I have my workflow wrong.....thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
You should be able to send the file straight into Photoshop from Lightroom without the JPG export. I would avoid doing multiple generations where possible, especially into a format like JPG. Check your Lightroom preferences, there should be setting to assign your external editor to Photoshop and it will export directly from the Library and re-import the edited file. In general though, unless you're doing some heavy retouching, you should be able to accomplish almost any look in Lightroom more quickly than in Photoshop and it's non-destructive.
 
A trick you can pull (albeit cheesy) to enlarge a picture and hide the pixels, is applying a photoshop filter such as brush strokes.
I did this once once in a non-professional environment on a lark: I had a picture captured with an old cell phone at 3Mpixels, and we wanted to blow it up to a wall portrait as a gag-gift. In order to avoid enlarging the pixels to the point that you could see each one, we first stretched the image to the new size, then applied a filter to make it look like the pattern was painted instead of pixelated. From far away, the image was roughly the same. Up close, it actually ended looking kind of cool.

I'm not sure if I'd do this for a paying client, but it might be worth experimenting with.
 
admactanium said:
You should be able to send the file straight into Photoshop from Lightroom without the JPG export. I would avoid doing multiple generations where possible, especially into a format like JPG. Check your Lightroom preferences, there should be setting to assign your external editor to Photoshop and it will export directly from the Library and re-import the edited file. In general though, unless you're doing some heavy retouching, you should be able to accomplish almost any look in Lightroom more quickly than in Photoshop and it's non-destructive.
Click to expand...

yes...that WAS the problem, i.e. the jpeg export. I was reducing my file to 4meg by doing that somehow. I now export from lightroom as a PSD file, which kept it at 17meg, crop to print size, and then exported out of PS as a jpeg. Final jpeg is now 17meg ! Now able so print large prints...although I need to learn how to not DIDDLE so much in PS. The photo is now tooooo sharp. ha But thanks! At least Im on the "right path" now. So much to learn, so little time. :) I will try the direct export from lightroom too.
 
M. Gilden said:
A trick you can pull (albeit cheesy) to enlarge a picture and hide the pixels, is applying a photoshop filter such as brush strokes.
I did this once once in a non-professional environment on a lark: I had a picture captured with an old cell phone at 3Mpixels, and we wanted to blow it up to a wall portrait as a gag-gift. In order to avoid enlarging the pixels to the point that you could see each one, we first stretched the image to the new size, then applied a filter to make it look like the pattern was painted instead of pixelated. From far away, the image was roughly the same. Up close, it actually ended looking kind of cool.

I'm not sure if I'd do this for a paying client, but it might be worth experimenting with.
Click to expand...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Great idea.....! Will keep that in mind for effects.
 
downsouthstudio said:
yes...that WAS the problem, i.e. the jpeg export. I was reducing my file to 4meg by doing that somehow. I now export from lightroom as a PSD file, which kept it at 17meg, crop to print size, and then exported out of PS as a jpeg. Final jpeg is now 17meg ! Now able so print large prints...although I need to learn how to not DIDDLE so much in PS. The photo is now tooooo sharp. ha But thanks! At least Im on the "right path" now. So much to learn, so little time. :) I will try the direct export from lightroom too.
Click to expand...
As someone who does (semi) professional retouching, I would suggest that you try to accomplish everything in Lightroom. I've found that most photographic issues can be solved in Lightroom without the need to export to PS unless you're removing large objects or covering huge blemishes. There are touch-up tools in LR that are good enough to fix most things. The main benefit of staying all in LR is that you don't create a bunch of duplicate files just for the small changes you're making in Photoshop. You can change everything you like in LR and the file size change is negligible. But as soon as you export to PS you have doubled your file size at a minimum and now have one extra file to keep track of. So you have to be sure the changes your making in PS are worth the expense and hassle of having a whole additional file.
 
M. Gilden said:
A trick you can pull (albeit cheesy) to enlarge a picture and hide the pixels, is applying a photoshop filter such as brush strokes.
I did this once once in a non-professional environment on a lark: I had a picture captured with an old cell phone at 3Mpixels, and we wanted to blow it up to a wall portrait as a gag-gift. In order to avoid enlarging the pixels to the point that you could see each one, we first stretched the image to the new size, then applied a filter to make it look like the pattern was painted instead of pixelated. From far away, the image was roughly the same. Up close, it actually ended looking kind of cool.

I'm not sure if I'd do this for a paying client, but it might be worth experimenting with.
Click to expand...

In the days before DSLR's the Wife did this process... had a drum scan of an original print made... rework in photoshop (v2.5 or so...)... then took a 'screen' shot of the result with a SRL had neg and print processed at local lab... The customer was 'ok' with the 11x14 results.

We never did that process again. We just bumped the price to include the drum scan in, and a digital print out, which was 'really expensive' at the time...

Within a few years it was scanning with a flat bet scanner, but still the problem was expensive 'digital out'...

But yeah, covering uprezing with digital filters or 'fake grain', etc. is one way to overcome the obvious artifacts. Although 1.5-2x with PS's 'interpolating' resizing may be 'better' and have 'fuzz' but less objectionable than big pixels.

The 'proper' viewing distance to a work should take the eye's 'averaging' function into account. Even 'paintings' are not to be viewed two feet in front of it, when the painting is a wall sized paining. Many 'master works' do in fact fall apart at the brush stroke level when so viewed.
 
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THANKS...for the great advice and tips from all of you.

I followed the tips and reworked the RAW file...it looks OK at 100% in photoshop, so I ordered a print. Most will view the print at 5 feet. If the print sucks, I will just chalk it up to experience. At least I know my GH2,LR,PS CS6 can produce nice prints up to 16x20 inches.
I have calibrated my monitor and the color space profile is embedded in the file. I can rely on Lightroom 4 preview...but Ive noticed PS CS6 preview looks a little different. I need to find out how to match the settings between LR and PS.

jeff
 
M. Gilden said:
A trick you can pull (albeit cheesy) to enlarge a picture and hide the pixels, is applying a photoshop filter such as brush strokes.
I did this once once in a non-professional environment on a lark: I had a picture captured with an old cell phone at 3Mpixels, and we wanted to blow it up to a wall portrait as a gag-gift. In order to avoid enlarging the pixels to the point that you could see each one, we first stretched the image to the new size, then applied a filter to make it look like the pattern was painted instead of pixelated. From far away, the image was roughly the same. Up close, it actually ended looking kind of cool.

I'm not sure if I'd do this for a paying client, but it might be worth experimenting with.
Click to expand...

I do the same thing for a flier that I put out each semester to attract students to the class that I instruct. It involves sports broadcasting. So I find a good CC image on Flickr of a football field, football, baseball field, etc. Then apply one of those brushstroke filters and import it to InDesign and use it as the background for the flier. Works quite nicely. I'm not sure which other situations I would use it for, but it does come in handy when the image is lower resolution than what you're working in.
 
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