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Site & Board Matters => Luminous Landscape Video => Topic started by: DaveCurtis on December 10, 2011, 06:42:52 pm

Title: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: DaveCurtis on December 10, 2011, 06:42:52 pm
Great video!

Would upsampling in Lightroom to 720 for a native print of say 420ppi be beneficial for my Epson 3800. Or does this upsampling only apply to the latest generation of printers?

Thanks Dave
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 10, 2011, 06:52:58 pm
Yes...depending on the image. Any Epson printer that has Finest Detail as an option can benefit.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: DaveCurtis on December 10, 2011, 07:48:36 pm
Thanks Jeff.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 11, 2011, 10:39:59 am
I have a similar question. Should you upsample to 720 (for a Epson) for any starting resolution? If I have a crop and the resolution is below 200 - still upsample to 720?

Sverre
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: alain on December 11, 2011, 03:04:10 pm
Hi

In one of the video's there's the statement upsample to 720 (for epson, 600 for canon and hp) from 300ppi and higher, for lower resolutions upres 50%.

I have another question : Is there another printer/paper profile needed if printing with finest detail on?


Alain

Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 11, 2011, 03:29:30 pm
I have another question : Is there another printer/paper profile needed if printing with finest detail on?

Nope...same profile assuming the profile was made with 2880 resolution.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 11, 2011, 03:46:26 pm
It was a discussion a few years ago that yous should match the printers native resolution - 360 ppi for Epson. The target was to skip another upsampling/downsampling in the printer driver.

Is this still a target for resolution bellow 300 or should you upsample with 50% even if you end up off 360?

Sverre
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 11, 2011, 04:11:58 pm
For Epson upsample to 360, for Canon/HP upsample to 300 if the native resolution of the are below thos targets. If the native rez is above, go to 720 for Epson and 600 for Canon/HP.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: alain on December 11, 2011, 04:24:13 pm
Nope...same profile assuming the profile was made with 2880 resolution.


thanks
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 11, 2011, 04:25:52 pm
For Epson upsample to 360, for Canon/HP upsample to 300 if the native resolution of the are below thos targets. If the native rez is above, go to 720 for Epson and 600 for Canon/HP.

Thank you Jeff!

Must say that your excellent video combined with the opportunity of asking the source question is fantastic  8)

Then I can make two presets - one with 360 and another with 720 for my Epson.

Sverre
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: alain on December 11, 2011, 04:29:52 pm
For Epson upsample to 360, for Canon/HP upsample to 300 if the native resolution of the are below thos targets. If the native rez is above, go to 720 for Epson and 600 for Canon/HP.

Hi Schewe

This is different than said in the printing from lightroom video. 


BTW. It's the way qimage is printing for a long time.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 11, 2011, 05:17:11 pm
This is different than said in the printing from lightroom video.  

No it isn't...if the native resolution is below 360, upsample to 360. If the native rez is above 360 but below 720, upsample to 720.

Actually, the discussion about whether or not to upsample is discussed elsewhere...this segment dealt with is it worth upsampling high native rez images to 720 (or 600).

(Edited to add second line since under review of the video, I didn't specifically mention under 360PPI images in this segment)
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 12, 2011, 12:38:29 pm
...
Then I can make two presets - one with 360 and another with 720 for my Epson.
...

With my Nikon D300 this will be 720 ppi for 4'x6' and 360 ppi for letter/A4 and above.
Then I don't have to think - only choose size of paper  8)
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Nigel Johnson on December 12, 2011, 03:03:59 pm
With my Nikon D300 this will be 720 ppi for 4'x6' and 360 ppi for letter/A4 and above.
Then I don't have to think - only choose size of paper  8)

Sverre,

I assume you mean 4 inches x 6 inches (4″x6″) not 4 feet x 6 feet (4′x6′) as you wrote.

By my calculation a 360 ppi print from a full D300 frame will be about 7.91″x11.91″. Letter is 8.5″x11″ and A4 is about 8.27″x11.69″, thus if you are printing the full frame with borders the native print resolution will be slightly greater than 360 and it may be worth testing 720 ppi for high frequency images. If you are printing borderless all bets are off, as the printer driver scales the image up larger than the nominal size in order to avoid any white borders - the amount is not specified hence you would not actually be printing at 360 or 720 ppi.

In addition your assumption of a changeover at around letter/A4 size is only true if you don't crop your image or if you don't stitch more than one image - in either of these cases you need to use the real dimensions of the image to be printed.

Regards
Nigel
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 12, 2011, 04:27:04 pm
Nigel,

Quote
I assume you mean 4 inches x 6 inches (4″x6″) not 4 feet x 6 feet (4′x6′) as you wrote.
I'm European used to the metric system - sorry!

Quote
If you are printing borderless all bets are off, as the printer driver scales the image up larger than the nominal size in order to avoid any white borders - the amount is not specified hence you would not actually be printing at 360 or 720 ppi.
I've used borderless up to now. Heard comments in the video suggestion have some margin for the feeder mechanism. If I loose control over dimension used it seems like another reason stop using borderless?

For 4''x6'' the borderless format is still handy - can other confirm that the quality is reduced using this format or is this an issue only for large print?

Regards
Sverre

Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Nigel Johnson on December 13, 2011, 03:51:48 pm
Sverre,

I'm European used to the metric system - sorry!

My comment was not intended as a criticism of you, but I just wished the dimensions to be clear - I am European also, but have the advantage of being from England and had an education using mixed imperial and metric units and still tend to use a both for different things!

Quote
For 4''x6'' the borderless format is still handy - can other confirm that the quality is reduced using this format or is this an issue only for large print?

All standard inkjet printers from Canon, Epson or HP enlarge the image slightly when printing borderless. The manufacturers do not specify the percentage or if the percentage changes for different print sizes in any public documents I have seen. Because of this, trying to print at an exact printer resolution does not work as the enlargement factor means that the print is actually made at a slightly lower resolution. If the factor was known it might be possible to select a different resolution that would scale to the correct printer resolution (this might not be possible as only integer resolutions are usable). To determine the input resolution required it would be necessary to print a test pattern at various resolutions to determine the input resolution that resulted in the desired print resolution - this would have to be checked for any possible changes with paper size.

The purpose of printing at specific print resolutions is to produce the maximum quality print for extremely high quality work. Most users of the printers are not worried about the ultimate quality and do not bother to use the optimum resolution. All the current printers contain good print sizing algorithms that produce very good quality results even if the optimum resolution is not used. I would anticipate that your 4″x6″ prints are probably for a use that does not require the ultimate quality and that perfectly acceptable prints will be produced by either printing at native resolution or at 720 ppi. I would suggest that you compare the results of borderless at native resolution and 720 ppi with each other and with a 720 ppi print with borders and see which you prefer. (Note that if you are printing from Lightroom and the native resolution is greater than 720 ppi there will be no difference between the two borderless prints as LR only prints up to 720 ppi and down-samples all higher native resolutions to 720 ppi.)

Regards
Nigel
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: s4e on December 13, 2011, 04:10:24 pm
Thank you Nigel for sharing your experience  :D
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: mac_paolo on December 19, 2011, 11:26:59 am
No it isn't...if the native resolution is below 360, upsample to 360. If the native rez is above 360 but below 720, upsample to 720.

Actually, the discussion about whether or not to upsample is discussed elsewhere...this segment dealt with is it worth upsampling high native rez images to 720 (or 600).

(Edited to add second line since under review of the video, I didn't specifically mention under 360PPI images in this segment)
Hi Jeff,
  watching both LR3 tutorials and these newer ones I too understood to upsample by 50% while lower than a certain threshold.
I was quite confused as I always thought to upres to the greater 360X multiplier just to avoid the job to be done by the printer/driver itself.

My question is: when upsizing from 360 to the final resolution (I'm speaking from the printer point of view when it receives the file from LR) will it use a serious algorithm or not?
I mean, should I always send 720 ppi files to the printer so that LR manages to upres better that the printer itself?
In worst case scenario, beside a longer time to export/send the file, it won't change nothing when printing from lower resolution, isn't it?

PS: forgive my english, I'm italian.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 19, 2011, 01:41:13 pm
My question is: when upsizing from 360 to the final resolution (I'm speaking from the printer point of view when it receives the file from LR) will it use a serious algorithm or not?

What do you mean by "a serious algorithm"? In Lightroom, the upsampling will be done via an adaptive bicubic algorithm...bicubic for small changes and bicubic smoother for larger changes with an interpolation in between–which is something Photoshop can't do.

The rule I use now is to upsample to 360ppi for anything under 360 native. For anything above 360, I upsample to 720.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Robert-Peter Westphal on December 19, 2011, 03:40:13 pm
Hello,

What I don't understand - in the Lieghtroom 3 videos Michael and Jeff explain that the option 'finest detail' is useable only when printig business charts. In the From Camera to print and screen vieos, Jeff explains that this option is th right one to use when upsampling an image to 720d(roplets)per inch.

Where is the point where I losed you ?

Many thanks and best wishes

Robert
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 19, 2011, 04:01:18 pm
What I don't understand - in the Lieghtroom 3 videos Michael and Jeff explain that the option 'finest detail' is useable only when printig business charts.

No...I said Epson "said that Finest Detail is only useful for vector art"...what I'm saying is that it's also useful when printing out at 720ppi with images whose native resolution is above 360ppi (I can't see any benefit from using Finest Detail when printing at 360).
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Robert-Peter Westphal on December 19, 2011, 04:16:57 pm
Jeff, many thanks for the information !

To put it all together :

Is this the right way ?

native resolution <300dpi - add up to 50%, finest detail to off
native resolution >300dpi - go to 720dpi ( in case of Epson, else 600dpi) and set 'finest detail to on

In case of Epson printer - does it make sense to use any steps between 360 and 720 dpi ( like 480dpi) instead of adding exactly 50% ?

Btw, I think it was Michael stating that finest details is useable for business graphics only  ;)
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 19, 2011, 06:30:19 pm
Nope...

It's now any res under 360 goes to 360, any res above 360 goes to 720 and print with finest detail on. In the case of Canon or HP it's 300/600.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Robert-Peter Westphal on December 20, 2011, 02:44:54 am
Many thanks to make it clear ( allthough it is different from the things said in the video).
I'm sure this will help me !
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: mac_paolo on December 20, 2011, 03:09:07 am
What do you mean by "a serious algorithm"? In Lightroom, the upsampling will be done via an adaptive bicubic algorithm...bicubic for small changes and bicubic smoother for larger changes with an interpolation in between–which is something Photoshop can't do.

The rule I use now is to upsample to 360ppi for anything under 360 native. For anything above 360, I upsample to 720.
Thanks Jeff. :)
Actually I was referring to the printer/driver.
It will get a 360 ppi image (let's take it as an example) and will print at a higher resolution (more than 360 doplets per inch). I always thought it should be a sort of "nearest neighbor" algorithm, I really don't know how to be more clear about that :)

So, the question is: shouldn't be always better to upsample to a high value under LR (720/600ppi based upon manifacturer's technology) and let the driver/printer do an easier job by upsampling from a high quality starting point?
I mean, always upsample to 720ppi under LR may be useless but never harmful, isn't it?
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: mac_paolo on December 22, 2011, 06:32:35 pm
Anyone?  :)
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on December 22, 2011, 08:30:17 pm
Actually I was referring to the printer/driver.
It will get a 360 ppi image (let's take it as an example) and will print at a higher resolution (more than 360 doplets per inch).

A 360PPI image will print out as a 360DPI image (for Epson) since Epson has 360 nozzles/inch in the pro machines. Forget about "droplets/inch" because that's not DPI, ok?

And whether or not it's useful to take ALL images and upsample to 720 PPI for printing, no...it's only useful if the native resolution of the image at the print size has more than 360 PPI. If the image is under 360, upsample to 360. If it's above 360 but below 720, upsample to 720. If it happens to be above 720, you may as well leave it because Lightroom will downsample to 720 before printing.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: mac_paolo on December 23, 2011, 03:00:53 am
A 360PPI image will print out as a 360DPI image (for Epson) since Epson has 360 nozzles/inch in the pro machines. Forget about "droplets/inch" because that's not DPI, ok?

And whether or not it's useful to take ALL images and upsample to 720 PPI for printing, no...it's only useful if the native resolution of the image at the print size has more than 360 PPI. If the image is under 360, upsample to 360. If it's above 360 but below 720, upsample to 720. If it happens to be above 720, you may as well leave it because Lightroom will downsample to 720 before printing.
Thanks Jeff!  :D

PS: I don't even know why did I write droplets per inch: I know well it's such a nonsense. I suppose I was way too tired!  :P
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on December 23, 2011, 06:40:16 am
A 360PPI image will print out as a 360DPI image (for Epson) since Epson has 360 nozzles/inch in the pro machines. Forget about "droplets/inch" because that's not DPI, ok?

And whether or not it's useful to take ALL images and upsample to 720 PPI for printing, no...it's only useful if the native resolution of the image at the print size has more than 360 PPI.

Hi Jeff,

While that may be true for a Lightroom centric printing workflow, it's not necessarily the case for e.g. a Qimage centric workflow. Some of the interpolation methods used by Qimage, exploit the possibility of adding credible information at 720 PPI (or 600 PPI for Canon/HP printers). Straight lines are less jaggy, and gradients are smooth, due to the use of the additional interpolated pixels. Of course images with high detail will benefit most, even if the real detail is limited to about 360 PPI.

Qimage is not the only application that can exploit the extra pixels available at 720 PPI interpolated output size. Photozoom Pro by Benvista allows to fine tune between vectorized edges and regularly interpolated edges, and it also allows to add noise at the final output size. That noise can mask the fact that real resolution was limited, because it mimicks surface detail in subjects that could use that.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Hening Bettermann on December 24, 2011, 06:54:40 am
Hi Bart,

could you give an estimate of how far down you would go with native resolution for upressing to 720 dpi rather than 360, using Photozoom Pro?

Thanks for making me aware of this app. Unlike Qimage, it can handle 16 bit color depth (and there is a Mac version… :-) ).

Merry Cristmas! - Hening.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Bart_van_der_Wolf on December 24, 2011, 07:24:01 am
Hi Bart,

could you give an estimate of how far down you would go with native resolution for upressing to 720 dpi rather than 360, using Photozoom Pro?

Hi Hening,

That's hard to say as a general guideline, because it depends on the subject matter and viewing distance. Also, when possible I try to shoot for the intended output, so I try to get the resolution I need later at capture time (e.g. by stitching). In addition, e.g. with architecture, some of the missing resolution can be restored (by deconvolution sharpening) or simulated/recreated by software such as Photozoom Pro. Even the addition of noise can trick the human eye (or rather the brain) into seeing non-existing detail.

Long story short, get as much detail to begin with by using good technique (e.g. tripod if possible/practical), use deconvolution sharpening to compensate for inevitable losses due to the capture process and enlargement process (interpolation method makes a difference) and make sure the printer uses every bit of detail that's thrown at it.

I almost always feed the printer the maximum resolution it's driver can handle, which is easy with Qimage. The worst that can happen is that printing takes a bit longer. Only when I have time constraints I will make a concession and drop the output resolution.

Quote
Thanks for making me aware of this app. Unlike Qimage, it can handle 16 bit color depth (and there is a Mac version… :-) ).

You're welcome. Just use a bit of restraint and do not go overboard with the vectorized edge enhancement, because the visual disconnect between too much edge detail versus material surface/structural detail looks unnatural.

Quote
Merry Christmas!

Same to you, and the others reading this.

Cheers,
Bart
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Hening Bettermann on December 24, 2011, 08:43:38 am
Thank you for this very fast reply - on Christmas evening day!

> get as much detail to begin with

Yes I always use tripod, deconvolution sharpening in Raw Developer, and focus stacking with Helicon Focus. Recently I have also begun to shoot about 8 frames per focus slice, intended for Super Resolution stacking - if wind allows…

Thanks again - Hening.
Title: Re: Resolution upsampling for output question
Post by: Schewe on February 06, 2012, 10:11:28 pm
I have a similar question. Should you upsample to 720 (for a Epson) for any starting resolution? If I have a crop and the resolution is below 200 - still upsample to 720?

Well, I would say no...but you should test it yourself. If below 360, upsample to 360, if above 360, upsample to 720.