If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
How do you make small pixel photos better on printout?
I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print
them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on it? |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Mark Herring wrote:
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 03:31:58 GMT, wrote: I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on it? Can't add information that is not there. Your file size equates to ~70-80 PPI for 8X10. Good prints need more like 200-300. you CAN use the un-sharp mask in Photoshop---or some other sharpening SW to make them look a bit sharper. Also, make sure the contrast is as high as possible without losing highlight or shadow detail. I've got an unusual suggestion. Print out the picture at its natural size on photo paper. Using good lighting, take a hi-res picture of the picture. A 3.4 megapixel or greater camera, possibly using a closeup lens. Print that out at a larger size, a size that still seems to have all the detail. Repeat until you get the size you want. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. It's critical to take good pictures each time. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
|
#5
|
|||
|
|||
"Carrie Lyons" wrote in message ...
I've got an unusual suggestion. Print out the picture at its natural size on photo paper. Using good lighting, take a hi-res picture of the picture. A 3.4 megapixel or greater camera, possibly using a closeup lens. Print that out at a larger size, a size that still seems to have all the detail. Repeat until you get the size you want. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. If you have PhotoShop or something similar, you can achieve the same effect with various filters, much faster. For instance, Gaussian blur with a radius of 1-2 pixels (experiment: undo, redo to get the right figure); (that achieves the smoothing out that printing and photographing does) or descreening; then sharpening and adjusting contrast. After all, the idea of PhotoShop is to provide digital methods to do all the photo manipulation in seconds that would have taken hours in the lab. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
From: "Carrie Lyons" Organization: Kook Terminators, Inc Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:13:40 -0600 Subject: How do you make small pixel photos better on printout? Mark Herring wrote: On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 03:31:58 GMT, wrote: I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on it? Can't add information that is not there. Your file size equates to ~70-80 PPI for 8X10. Good prints need more like 200-300. you CAN use the un-sharp mask in Photoshop---or some other sharpening SW to make them look a bit sharper. Also, make sure the contrast is as high as possible without losing highlight or shadow detail. I've got an unusual suggestion. Print out the picture at its natural size on photo paper. Using good lighting, take a hi-res picture of the picture. A 3.4 megapixel or greater camera, possibly using a closeup lens. Print that out at a larger size, a size that still seems to have all the detail. Repeat until you get the size you want. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. It's critical to take good pictures each time. Hahahahahahaha, this is the funniest thing ever... so u propose to introduce the distortion of the printer, of the lens, CCD chip, jpg compression to IMPROVE the original??? lol lol maybe u should try upsampling the original image in Photoshop first? hehe, can't stop laughing.. lol Brian |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
On 29 Jan 2004 12:15:22 -0800, (W. W.
Schwolgin) wrote: wrote in message . .. I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on it? 560x700 pixel is not much information to print at the size 8 x11 inch and the data must be upsampled. Normally the printer driver does this. This is convenient, but you cannot control the result. There are differnt methods to upsample or interpolate. They differ in speed and quality. Pixel replication is a verry fast method, but the results are poor. Normally bicubic interpolation is a good trade off between speed and quality. But there are better methods availably. Some are implemented as photoshop plugins, others are standalone. The tool I use for printing is Qimage. It can be use free for 30 days. so you can find out whether you like the results. http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/ But of cause there are other products in that market. Winfried Fundamentally, this isn't worth the trouble. There simply isn't enough information to make it worth while. The results will always be fuzzy, and if you somehow did (by resamply and sharpening) make it look better, it would be full of spurious artifacts. Paul |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Alan wrote:
wrote: Print out the picture at its natural size on photo paper. Using good lighting, take a hi-res picture of the picture. A 3.4 megapixel or greater camera, possibly using a closeup lens. Print that out at a larger size, a size that still seems to have all the detail. Repeat until you get the size you want. If you have PhotoShop or something similar, you can achieve the same effect with various filters, much faster. For instance, Gaussian blur with a radius of 1-2 pixels (experiment: undo, redo to get the right figure); (that achieves the smoothing out that printing and photographing does) or descreening; then sharpening and adjusting contrast. After all, the idea of PhotoShop is to provide digital methods to do all the photo manipulation in seconds that would have taken hours in the lab. I'll give it a try sometime, thanks. Brian Lehen wrote: so u propose to introduce the distortion of the printer, of the lens, CCD chip, jpg compression to IMPROVE the original??? Hi-res pics on my Nikon are TIFF format, and despite your laughter, it works. maybe u should try upsampling the original image in Photoshop first? I'll check that out too, thanks. -- $20 mil from Nike: http://miscstuff.org/~cypherpunk/Tiger_Woods_Swoosh.jpg |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Paul Cooper wrote in message . ..
On 29 Jan 2004 12:15:22 -0800, (W. W. Schwolgin) wrote: wrote in message . .. I got a bunch of photos that are only 560x700 or so and when I print them on 8 x 11 the features are not very fine. How can I improve on it? 560x700 pixel is not much information to print at the size 8 x11 inch and the data must be upsampled. Normally the printer driver does this. This is convenient, but you cannot control the result. There are differnt methods to upsample or interpolate. They differ in speed and quality. Pixel replication is a verry fast method, but the results are poor. Normally bicubic interpolation is a good trade off between speed and quality. But there are better methods availably. Some are implemented as photoshop plugins, others are standalone. The tool I use for printing is Qimage. It can be use free for 30 days. so you can find out whether you like the results. http://www.ddisoftware.com/qimage/ But of cause there are other products in that market. Winfried Fundamentally, this isn't worth the trouble. There simply isn't enough information to make it worth while. The results will always be fuzzy, and if you somehow did (by resamply and sharpening) make it look better, it would be full of spurious artifacts. Paul Paul, you are right, in this case there might not be enough information for a good print. But why do you say "fundamentally"? To my experience the interpolation method makes a difference. I did a test and printed an image with the size 10 x 15 cm at 300dpi (about 6.2 MB as tiff). I printed the image with Photoshop Elements and Qimage at the size 10x15cm. Of cause the was no realy difference. Then I did a second test with the same file and printed at 100dpi and a size of 30 x45 cm. In this case there was a visual difference. The Qimage print looked smoother and more sharp. But nevertheless, a 100dpi image will not give a good print. Winfried |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Canon S820 print quality | Dru | Printers | 2 | September 26th 03 03:21 PM |