Help with lage print.

Toshido

Better place for this... Anyways...

Repost from what I just sent to digital darkroom...

So i am sending a picture to get printed large for the first time. I want to print it at 24x36. I talked to the printers and they said they print everything at 300dpi. That makes for a HUGE file, many mor pixles than I have in my cropped version.
They also told me that they use genuine fractals to upscale images as needed.

So my question is... How good is Genuine Fractals?

I looked at my image and right now it is 2524x1683 pixels, or at 24"x36" it is 70 ppi.

Should I crop looser just to gain more pixels and how much or should this be decent, as long as they don't have their noses against the image?

Will post the image in a moment for people to see and give opinions. This is going to be a father's day present so it has sentimental value, not just a client...

Also now the colours went all wonky after moving from Lightroom to photoshop. I think it has to do with me selecting the "edit in" option in lightroom. Maybe be better if I just export the lightroom picture and work on that.
So help with that as well.

First the original RAW conversion. The think I want blown up with slightly different crop.




Next the one I edited in Photoshop. Only real reason I did this was to add my signature in the corner.


Full size here http://tag-photos.smugmug.com/gallery/8574914_6NTuV#565003432_hfzW8

Any help would be great!

Art Scott

I have been using GF since it was still owned by Lizard Tech and v3.0......now it is a 100 times better and easier to use.
I GF all my files that are going to be printed above 16X20 depending on howmuch I have actually cropped out...sometimes I need to GF the 8x10's also......it has won all the up rezing awards for many years now.......

All you need to do is resize your pic in PS underthe image tab and when the dialouge boxpops up that shows the image size and dpi change the dpi to 300 (making sure that the only box toward the bottom that is tickedis the constrain proportions, so no interpolating occures) and shipp off to your printer......or download the trial copy of GF and uprez yourself folowing the instructions above and run thru GF and mark filed as having been GF'ed:D

ALSO.....if you are stillworking on your post work of the file do not do any sharpening of the file until i hasbeen thru GF....then take it into unsharp mask to sharpen......
I do not know why GF says to do it this way but they do.

When I first used GF I agve MY pro Print Lab a disk with a full res file not GF'ed and 1 full res + GF....after they looked both over they made my prints (30X40") from the GF'ed file....the picture was taken with a Konica Minolta A2 8mp (pro-sumer p/s)

GF has taken a lot of worry out of things I wanted to print.......I am slowly reworking pic taken with my HP C200 1mp cam...all jpgs but at least LR2 will adjust them also.
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EDIT: My shooting habits are a bit different than some......I try to shoot the LOWEST ISO at all times but yet I knwo pros that shoot higher even in broad daylight at air shows and such.....I did not check your exif.....but ifyou view these as originals (in PS) and there is noise in the pics, then GF will multiply that noise when up rezing....all up rezing software will....so de-noise before uprez if needed.......view your files in PS at least at 100% (or print size) to see how much know there is.................

Toshido

Thanks Art, i was hoping you would chime in here.

I also shoot lowest ISO I can at all times. Even then, after post there is some noise in skies and on the planes. I have run these through noiseware though.

I am guessing changing colours is because of weird colour space issues bouncing from lightroom to photoshop. I think I will manually export a TIFF from lightroom and play with it in photoshop to see if that cures my colour issues.

Again thanks, I know that you have been touting the virtues of GF for awhile just no idae of how far it can take an image.

Art Scott

Toshido wrote:

just no idae of how far it can take an image.

GF say it will uprez to 600%.......I haven't had a reson to do that yet.....my current cams (Konica Minolta 7D' s) are 6mp an at 300dpi in PS that is just under 8x10" and I have taken them to 30 X 40" also......just under 400%.......which gives me a print with no grain (noise) that can be viewed nose to print.............. with no viewing distance needed to smooth the grain as with most large prints..............