Large Format Commercial Printing

[Marc_Schultz]

I am wondering if anyone has any experience with large format 2 and 3 meter commercial inkjet prints from the Canon EOS 1DS 11.1 MP DSLR?

I am trying to get an idea on what the print limitations are as I may have some work to shoot on location which I may then need to printed rather large.

I have done very large billboard prints from shots I did with the 22MP Phase One H25 medium format digital back with very good results, but nothing so far from 35MM DSLR cameras so I have no knowledge or experience in this area unfortunately.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks..

Marc Schultz
www.marcschultz.com

[DavidHarpe]

Marc,

Do a search and you'll find a couple of good discussions of this issue. The summary is that you will have excellent results since billboards are frequently printed at 50 DPI or less.

Dave

[MarkTDavidson]

Marc,

Something to remember is that large format images are meant to be viewed from a very great distance. I still remember the days of the very first Vuteks( I believe 5m machines) and marveling at the quality of output at 36 DPI. The tech told me that the first versions printed at 18 DPI and were also surprising in their quality.

They have built all this technology to make very good prints from relatively small files.

As an example, Nikon promoted the quality of their 5MP consumer camera by printing an image that covered the side of a building in NY. For many, the quality was indistinguishable from banners made from purpose shot photos.

[BernardvanDierendonck]

See also articles on www.cps.canon-europe.com/home , Issue 11 (sharper images and blow ups)
Cheers
Bernard

[Marc_Schultz]

Thanks Dave for your good feedback. I was aware that many billboards are often printed at 150-200 PPI or less. The issue I am concerned more with here is that these prints of maybe 2-3 meter squared may not be viewed as far away as say a big billboard might be along a freeway. So it is likely they may have to be printed with a bit more resolution. Thanks again for taking the time to write.

[Marc_Schultz]

Thanks for that link Mark. Those articles are interesting and you turned me onto a woonderful new soruce for good technical information. Cheers... Marc...

[DavidHarpe]

Hey Marc,

For non-traditional large format applications, it becomes a subject matter issue. What you have to start thinking about is when you're up close, what is the smallest detail that you want to resolve? For example, let's say that the shot is of a city skyline at sunset. Do you want to be able to clearly read the road signs, or is it okay to see just a green square? Do you want to be able to read a billboard in the background, or is an outline okay?

A city skyline shot has a lot of detail that you could resolve if you have the capability. However another subject might not require a lot of detail. For example, let's say you take a standard head shot of a model. You COULD resolve it to such a degree that her pores become the size of quarters when enlarged. However it's doubtful that the client (or especially the model) would want that kind of detail for that particular subject. My 17MP 1DsMkII has enough detail that I can clearly resolve peach fuzz on a model's face. I can't imagine wanting more detail than that for head shots.

I have a 5-foot wide print that I had made on canvas and stretched onto a frame. The photo is from a 6MP camera and is a fairly tight shot of my cat's face. It hangs on a wall where the typical viewing distance is around two or three feet. The detail is more than enough to generate ooh's and ahhh's - you can see individual hair and whiskers. The effective resolution is 50DPI.

If you have an inkjet printer you can do some basic testing yourself without too much trouble. Take the file you want to use and load it up into photoshop. Upsize the file to the desired resolution, then do a 100% crop to fit the largest paper size your printer supports. Create a print and stick it on the wall to see how it looks. It's not perfect (there are many variables you can tweak in the upsizing process), but it will start to give you an idea of what you're doing. You can also usually talk the printer into doing small-scale testing on their gear as well. The last thing a printer wants is an unhappy customer with a 40' print, so they are usually more than willing to do some testing with you.

Good luck!

Dave

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