New 5.0 Megapixel Camera and Resolution

[Jennifer Rosenberg]

When I have an image I want *large*...poster large... I have a technique
which works nicely at smoothing out pixelations and other oddities. It does
NOT maintain "perfect" photo quality. But it does help one make something
that looks nice, big.

1. Start with the maximum resolution photo possible.

2. Upsample to the desired resolution. Keep in mind that for most print
scenarios, a 1.4 dpi-lpi ratio is just *fine*. So if you will be printing to
an 85 (or even 65) lpi laser printer, 120 dpi may do. And for my Xerox
DocuPrint, which defaults to 65 lpi and looks just fine that way, even a
resolution of 91 dpi is OK. I tend to go for a little more resolution than
that, but experiment to see what works! For 133 lpi, 186.2 dpi (round up to
190 if you want) is adequate. Experiment. Try printing out two photos (at
original quality or downsampled from original quality) at the same print
dimensions but with differing pixel dimensions. See at what point you can
determine an appreciable difference in quality... (this is for photos only,
NOT text. I can tell the difference between text up to about 600 dpi. I can
only tell the difference between 600 and 1200 dpi with a loupe.)

3. Play with filters. Dry brush, watercolor and paint daubs can all be
tweeked (go for more detail, smaller brushes, etc.) to smooth things out
nicely. The Dust and Scratches filter can also help. Sometimes a judicious
combination of filters will create a truly lovely result. Your goal is
something that maintains most of the original detail but smooths out any
pixelations and allows you to print at a higher resolution.

Jen

[Daryl Pritchard]

Jen,

I'd like to comment on your suggestions as excellent ones. I'd not thought to suggest such ideas to DeeDee yet had done the very same thing myself, when I was unable to obtain photo quality 11x14" images from my 3.3 megapixel digital camera. I had a park scene in Holland of a path winding across a small creek and through some trees that turned out better than expected as a photo, yet wasn't suitable for a big enlargement. When upsampled to 300ppi at 11"x14", I printed a small area of the image to check the print quality and was not satisified. So, I began to play around and found myself quite pleased by the results obtained from the Fresco filter. In effect, that filter blended together the pixels into "splotches of paint", which looked quite effective when printed on artist canvas. I've probably received more compliments on this framed faux watercolor image than most of my usual photos.

I'll add a note too that when one experiments with Filters, be sure to not overlook the Fade command which allows you to reduce the impact of a given filter upon an image. It's easy to get overzealous and kill a good image by excessive applications of filters.

Regards,

Daryl

[Jennifer Rosenberg]

"It's easy to get overzealous and kill a good image by excessive
applications of filters."

Which is where the History and History brush come in handy... Take
snapshots. Many snapshots.

I've had photos where I ran effects on the whole thing, taken a snapshot,
and then backtracked. The snapshot can be "history brushed" even though it
is a history state which no longer exists. That effect can then be
spot-applied to certain areas with a very specific level of opacity.

And if all else fails, with snapshots you can back up easily even if your
history cache has dumped the earliest states.

With some photos, you can run one set of filters, snapshot, back up, run
another set of filters, snapshot, back up, and then selectively
history-brush (experiment with brush size and shape...fuzzy edges may or may
not help) the filters onto different areas of the canvas. If you've got a
sharp-focus face with an out-of-focus background, for example, this effect
is particularly useful at selectively enhancing parts of the photo. This
also reduces the number of times you're reinterpolating any single part of a
photo.

Jen

[DeeDee McGann]

Thank you Jen.

To be honest with you, I have not gotten as far as using the "history brush." Now I have a good reason to learn it. Thank you,

DeeDee

[DeeDee McGann]

Oops here's the link:

http://www.pbase.com/image/1784231 <http://www.pbase.com/image/1784231>

DeeDee

[DeeDee McGann]

Well here is the poster so you can see how it came out. I hear Kodak plays with the interpolation.

Perhaps the fact that I extracted the image and did a gradient (radial) background helped???

DeeDee