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Author Topic: 4K resolution and print output  (Read 4644 times)

deanwork

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4K resolution and print output
« on: January 08, 2017, 11:10:07 am »

I have yet to order a 4K display for photo editing but I plan to next week.

Can anyone point out any things to look out for when editing and sharpening for pigment inkjet output. I assume it is going to take some getting used to.

John

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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2017, 12:31:15 pm »

I have yet to order a 4K display for photo editing but I plan to next week.

Can anyone point out any things to look out for when editing and sharpening for pigment inkjet output. I assume it is going to take some getting used to.

Hi John,

Nothing really changes. The image pixels are not affected, and the printer + media are still the same as well. So the sharpening should be the same as before.

Depending on your actual display design, you'd use a different Zoom scale to get an approximate impression of the image at output dimensions. Zoomscale = Display PPI / Output PPI. So the only thing you need to figure out is the Display PPI (horizontal pixels divided by actual width in inches).

This, of course, assumes that your image is already resampled to the printer's native resolution, or larger if a larger output size is required than the camera sensor offers. That is the image size at which the output sharpening is applied.

Cheers,
Bart
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Doug Gray

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2017, 01:43:49 pm »

I have yet to order a 4K display for photo editing but I plan to next week.

Can anyone point out any things to look out for when editing and sharpening for pigment inkjet output. I assume it is going to take some getting used to.

John

One thing I've noticed is that zoom % level alters soft proofing. Anything other than 100% or multiples of 100% can alter soft proof accuracy with printer profiles in particular. This seems to be due to interpolation error. In some ways soft proofing with a high DPI monitor should improve as the effect is worse with lower DPI monitors.
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deanwork

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #3 on: January 08, 2017, 02:40:08 pm »

Well that is what I was wondering about.

I ALWAYS do my critical image editing ( retouching, masking,sharpening, etc ) at 100% but 4K 100% on the display shows you very little right? ( another good reason to buy a 32" display.)  I mean you are going to be doing a lot of scrolling around to do a pen selection, or judge sharpening over the whole image, etc.

I'll get used to it.

john





One thing I've noticed is that zoom % level alters soft proofing. Anything other than 100% or multiples of 100% can alter soft proof accuracy with printer profiles in particular. This seems to be due to interpolation error. In some ways soft proofing with a high DPI monitor should improve as the effect is worse with lower DPI monitors.
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Hans Kruse

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #4 on: January 08, 2017, 02:53:17 pm »

I have yet to order a 4K display for photo editing but I plan to next week.

Can anyone point out any things to look out for when editing and sharpening for pigment inkjet output. I assume it is going to take some getting used to.

John

If you are using a Mac beware of the scaling issues to a 4K display if you use a "looks like" resolution that is not full HD or 4K! This is relevant on a large monitor like 27" or larger.

Alan Klein

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2017, 10:27:11 pm »

Would editing on 4K monitors do a better job for making slide shows for 4K UHDTV's?

Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2017, 04:45:49 am »

One thing I've noticed is that zoom % level alters soft proofing. Anything other than 100% or multiples of 100% can alter soft proof accuracy with printer profiles in particular. This seems to be due to interpolation error.

Correct, limited quality interpolation (at other than 100% zoom levels), and in the case of softproofing gamma will cause issues. The most glaring issues are in luminance (and thus very much sharpening related), but they also happen in chroma where the human visual system works in complex ways.

For only sharpening/gamma related impressions of what to look for, one could use one of my targets that were designed for printer resolution testing: 600 PPI version, 720 PPI version. When the targets are used on display, the numbers on the charts are not relevant anymore because they refer to a different PPI and displayed size, so either of the targets will work just fine for pixel peeping the artifacts. Repositioning a target at different positions on the display should not make a difference, but it often does, due to (non-uniform) gamma effects and viewing angle differences. For printed output, one should use the correct version, and calculate the zoom factor for correct display size as indicated before.

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: January 09, 2017, 04:55:35 am by BartvanderWolf »
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deanwork

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2017, 10:07:03 am »

Well, if viewing and soft proofing in 4K is making printmaking more difficult and tricky what is the point in going there? I'm not using my display to entertain my clients, I'm using it to make prints. I don't do pro video or gaming certainly. I'm not convinced it's helpful for what I do. Maybe it is, but so far I have't heard anything that makes me want to switch to it. To have a display that is sharper than paper doesn't seem to provide an advantage.

john
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Mark D Segal

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2017, 10:13:14 am »

Well, if viewing and soft proofing in 4K is making printmaking more difficult and tricky what is the point in going there? I'm not using my display to entertain my clients, I'm using it to make prints. I don't do pro video or gaming certainly. I'm not convinced it's helpful for what I do. Maybe it is, but so far I have't heard anything that makes me want to switch to it. To have a display that is sharper than paper doesn't seem to provide an advantage.

john

Interesting observation John, and brings to mind a little "hobby" of mine - periodically looking at some of my prints and asking whether what I am seeing on paper is more or less sharp than how I would perceive that scene in reality, taking into account of course that I am examining an image at the end of my nose that I would view at some distance as an original scene. Often I think we're at or near the practical threshold of when "sharp" is sharp enough for non-specialized purposes.
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deanwork

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2017, 10:48:04 am »

I know, you are right. We have two divergent worlds going on now, the screen and the print.

In society at large, the screen has almost completely taken over the print as the forum for how photographs are consumed.

Here in Atlanta we recently had a great photo books conference as part of Atlanta Celebrates Photography. Photo book publishers from all over the country came here with their samples. I loved it. I suggested a former student of mine meet me over there and look at the publications. This guy is 30 now and is a really excellent ad and editorial photographer who works in many countries. I asked him what he though of all the great tri tone and high-end color books, and he said, wow that's cool but what do these publishers do with the books? Do people still buy books? His world is online. 15 years ago his work would be in print form, now it is consumed screens of one form or another. Of course this is inevitable, and certainly saves trees. Prints are going to be used as an art form only in my experience. Even in shopping malls and stuff, we are going to see all the displays go to super high-res video, and maybe 3d vr kinds of things. These images are going to be sharper than reality and produce a kind of "special effect" presence.  Either that or you will consume it on your phone. We used to have specialized software developed for sharpening pictures, now the trend is to produce software to soften them.

I"m so sorry I'm way OT.

john



Interesting observation John, and brings to mind a little "hobby" of mine - periodically looking at some of my prints and asking whether what I am seeing on paper is more or less sharp than how I would perceive that scene in reality, taking into account of course that I am examining an image at the end of my nose that I would view at some distance as an original scene. Often I think we're at or near the practical threshold of when "sharp" is sharp enough for non-specialized purposes.
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rdonson

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Re: 4K resolution and print output
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2017, 02:54:00 pm »

John, I think prints and books are making a comeback but in new and different ways than in the past.  Look at Lenswork's books and "portfolios", the growing popularity for portfolios like the Moab Chinle Ice Nine, Hahnemuhle's fine art photo cards and the growing number of printed "zines".

Some examples from "The Art of Photography" by Ted Forbes
https://youtu.be/3hYKBRzJsY0
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Regards,
Ron
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