I've done a lot of experimenting, but just on-screen so far.
Equipment: d800 with 105mm
Software: cs5, photokit sharpener 2
I'm shooting a collection of artwork I own for reproduction. The camera is stationary and the painting moves around on a wall. I shoot in chunks, then stich together (if anyone has any photomerge tips, I could use them. I haven't figured that out 100% either). Anyway, the camera is about 36" away from the wall, which gives me a ~10x7" chunk of the painting. Once I finish shooting/stitching, I end up with a huge file obviously, and the goal is to make an original sized (usually 50x50" or so) print at 300dpi. So the actual question (I follow the pk sharpener recommended workflow... capture sharpen>creative>output):
What would be the correct way to go about this? Should I apply the capture sharpening to the original (over sized) file and then down-sample to the desired dimensions@300dpi? Or, should I down-sample to the desired dimensions@300dpi and THEN apply capture sharpening? Or, a different way altogether?
The reason I don't shoot from further back is because the quality I'm looking for just isn't there.
It makes sense that the closer I shoot, the larger the image, the more pixels I end up dropping when re-sampling. But I've done some testing, and even after dropping all those pixels, the images still look great compared to shooting from say... 6' away or so (to get the 300dpi I need for print). Looking for that happy medium.
Thanks