The Pixel Wars Are Back, And That's Great! - Says B&h Article

There are some misconceptions about printing in general and also specifically to how known FAA printing contractors actually print. There is a common misconception that DPI means dots per inch on the print medium. DPI is a misnomer and actually refers to the number of pixels input into the printer per inch of print, not the ink droplets used in printing. The term dots is archaic. According to a tech from a printing company the printers are set at 300 DPI. Again that is the input.That input is interpolated to make smooth transitions and the output is far finer. If you have enough pixels in the uploaded file to make a 300 DPI print the printer will use all of them. If not the input file will be adjusted up to meet the 300 DPI input setting.

While there is no doubt a difference between a print with sufficient initial pixels for a 300 DPI input and one that was up sized, the actual ink amount will be the same and the difference in appearance will be slight, and only by close inspection can you see the difference. (I did this test with an expert printmaker many years before FAA was started).

So bottom line is use as much pixels as you can, but do not upsize as they will do that for you on the larger prints and doing it twice is too much. If you can get more pixels the printers will use all of them and if you offer the top sizes allowed for that file they will use what you have down to 100 pixels per inch and upsize for a 300 DPI print.
Keep in mind there is a maximum print size here as well as a maximum file size for the compressed file.

You can make a nice 60 x 40 inch print with a "standard" 6,000 x 4,000 print camera pixel file. But more is better! Things like sharpness and noise will make a far bigger difference than whether or not you have enough pixels for a true 300 DPI print.

If you choose not to allow a print made with a 100 DPI input, then simply do not put a price on the largest print files. Do the math. I offer my prints at the largest sizes allowed for the file size and never had a problem. This info is to the best of my understanding and may not apply to all FAA printing.
(Edited to say they will use all your pixels down to 100ppi not 200. typo)

Richard have you purchased a nice large print from FAA? I have a 30 x 40 canvas over the fireplace of a Iceland landscape. I can walk right up to it and look at all the detail in the foreground rocks.

I don't know who much more detail anyone could want. Dust mites on the rocks? If I wanted to see tiny details beyond what the eye can normally see in a landscape, I'd shoot a macro of one of the rocks.

Thank you, Bradford, that is an excellent explanation.

Personally, I am more than happy with the quality of prints I get from FAA and my customers seem to be satisfied also.

Interestingly, I have been traveling a lot more recently and have been examining the sometimes huge prints (say 60" or more) that adorn many corporate hotel foyers and corridors. To be honest I have not been overly impressed with the sharpness of many of them, despite the photogs no doubt using the latest and greatest technologies.

I am perfectly happy with my Panny GX8 at 20MP on a crop sensor. I am even happy with my old LX5 at 10.1MP that is still a great workhorse for me. I find the whole marketing of yet more pixels to be fascinating.

In the end a poorly composed image is still going to be a poorly composed image, however many MP it has :-D

JMHO - Richard

Posts crossed, Edward! I agree entirely. My point was just to post the article.

I think they're getting people to focus on the wrong thing (pun intended)

Yup and you better have those high megapixel cameras on a rock solid tripod or you are going to see every bit of motion blur.

Also, you better point that monster sensor at something interesting otherwise you'll end up with a huge yawn fest file.

....

Of course I am tempted to get one of those 50 megapixel Canon's. Just need the print sales to move into overdrive. Love to be able to crop like crazy and still have a large file.

my camera is 30mp i think, it creates an image that is 30-50 megs a piece as a raw. larger pixels, they are nice. i would rather have clean iso and better range in highlight and shadow. to be able to shoot 100,000 iso and have it clean and clear, with the option of a million iso.

i can shoot a 4k video if i didn't mind the 500 megs a second output... i do mind btw, i never use that mode.

more pixels are nice, when you want to shoot a shot of the city and you want to know what time it was by looking at the wrist watch of the guy hanging out the window on the 55th floor of some building 4 blocks away. yeah, that's cool, but meh....

400mp - how big is that file?

if you want to crop tight, more pixels is more better. don't need a zoom lens if i can shoot it with a plain one and crop it out.

i'd rather have clarity and light gathering ability.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I am shooting with several cameras - one of them is the canon 5 Ds r with 50mp and it´s breathtaking. I love that camera.

how big is the 50mp in megs?


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Mike, a raw file is roughly 50-53mb in size a tif about 280mb, cropped often about 130mb or so and a jpeg than comes out at 20 - 24 mb (depends on cropping and such). If you add layers in photoshop etc. that´s a different story then.

i was once looking at that camera, but the limited iso stopped me. so i went with the 5dmk4. the camera is still new and expensive, so it will be awhile before i get something new. but i'd like a mirrorless set up, not sure if canon will have something like that.

wish my lens came in the form for the pentax k1, otherwise i would have switched over.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

That 5Ds is on my I think I need this list If for nothing else the cropability of it would be incredible.

Like mike though, high ISO was more critical to me so I went with a 6D.

You can't get a lens adapter?

___________
Susan Maxwell Schmidt
So-so Board Moderator and
Artist Extraordinaire

This one is taken with the 5ds-r, please feel free to enlarge to 100% - the detail will blow you away (i guess). I altered the background so that´s of no interest for the detail

On problem with super hig MP sensors (as explained to me by a National Geographic Photographer) is that the physical size of each pixel is so small that the light-gathering ability suffers. As such, he prefers to use a 20-something MP camera as opposed to a 50 when the light begins to fade. He does a lot of dawn and dusk work - so his "big gun" camera sits in the bag more often than not.


---------------
~ Bill
~ My Fort McHenry Photography Blog

Bradford Martin explained it pretty well.

The camera industry is desperate for ways to sell against smart phones. That's one reason they're once again pushing resolution - because cameras, being larger, will always be able to have bigger sensors than phones.

I have a friend with a framed 30" print on his wall, of a 5mp photo he took years ago. It looks great.

Saves cost on ink printing at lower densities and saves file server space with only 25mb files allowed... makes perfect business sense... I sell true museum quality restored antique prints (as verified by Bard Graduate Center, NYC) on another venue that I print myself... sales vary greatly, its great hobby, my prints are popular... people love old restored antique prints. No matter what resolution you send to a pro Epson printer, the output will always be 360dpi for each channel... the dot size is variable and can be interpolated... but at the hardware level, it's always 360dpi per-channel at the print head.

I suggest that everyone read Bradford Martin's reply.

DPI doesn't mean actual drops of ink - that's a complicated and very proprietary formula.


Print vendors have established pixel dimension requirements for prints of various sizes. FAA just enforces those. We should all (including B&H photo) stop talking about DPI because there's no direct relation to camera sensor size - a digital image is always "upsized" and re-interpolated when printed.

B&H is slicing up some marketing baloney here.

The writer of the article doesn't understand offset printing requirements vs inkjet printing requirements. Thus, he draws erroneous (and largely irrelevant) conclusions.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

I don't think they necessarily care, Dan. Just as long as it gets clicks. Plus they know that many photogs just have to get the latest gear... ;-)

The MET digitally restores masterpiece paintings (and lots of other museums) from custom made 9GB scans and has team of 12 people do a pixel by pixel color match and restore. A true museum quality print is 1440dpi interpolated - for approximately 1.2 GB 16 bit grayscale 16x20 prints and 2.1 GB for color. The source material for my antique print restorations is anywhere from 250mb files up 1.2 GB files - however a few days ago was editing a 2.1gb file, as in gigabyte.

True, Richard. The facts are simply that it's newer and has more pixels. Everything else is just for Google.


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online

Meanwhile the bulk of the market only cares about 1000 x 1000 pixel Instragram images.

The other thing to remember is that large images are meant to be enjoyed at a distance, where you can use a lower resolution with ill effect.

Kathy, that is very interesting from the perspective of museum cataloging and I know the extremes that they go to in some areas such as oil immersion scanning for restoration of slides, etc., but that's a different audience.

There is a time and a place for that level of detail.

The point I was making is that camera manufacturers (and those who sell them) keep on chasing more MP largely as a sales pitch when there really is no great advantage to most people, other than perhaps the secret service... ;-)

Hi,
Very nice article.

Here is a link from Abbie's site for FAA template product sizes.
http://1stangel.co.uk/fineartamerica/templates-downloads

And here is a link to correct it free.
https://www.imgonline.com.ua/eng/resize-image.php

I hope this helps,
Delynn
Art group administrator.
https://fineartamerica.com/groups/on-sale-discounts-here-for-a-limited-time-promotion.html?tab=overview

I was at a gallery recently and they were showing these gigantic Stephen Wilkes C prints. “Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom”

(In simple terms, a chromogenic print or C-print is a photo lab print produced on light-sensitive color paper then processed in wet chemistry. )

The photographs were taken with a 4x5 camera of an old, abandoned building on Ellis Island.

You not only saw the fly down the hall on the wall, you could see the fly's poop.

http://bit.ly/2oalGfA