The Digital Print: resolution?

[jma47]

Just going through the 'Digital Print' book from Jeff Schewe and need a clarification
regarding upsampling and printing from Lightroom:
 
In the Print module, should I set the print resolution to 720 PPI every time the native resolution is above 360 PPI (my printer is an Epson 4900) and keep it at 360 PPI when under this limit?

I am getting confused because in his book on LR, Seth Resnick writes: "in order to determine the ideal resolution for printing, we want to output at the native resolution.
Book example: By checking Dimensions in the Guides Panel and unchecking Print resolution in the Print Job Panel we see (example) that the output will be 230 PPI."

In this scenario, is it recommended to check print Resolution and enter 360 PPI?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[mvsoske]

I'm sure Jeff will reply, but in the meantime, here is an article Jeff authored that discusses your question: http://www.digitalphotopro.com/technique/workflow/the-right-resolution.html

It is in the book also but perhaps this article will clarify.

Mark

[jma47]

Article does indeed clarify the issue; Thks a lot.

[Schewe]

I am getting confused because in his book on LR, Seth Resnick writes: "in order to determine the ideal resolution for printing, we want to output at the native resolution.
Book example: By checking Dimensions in the Guides Panel and unchecking Print resolution in the Print Job Panel we see (example) that the output will be 230 PPI."

Seth is wrong...and I proved it to him last June when he was at my studio doing a D-65 workshop...he's now on board with my way...but his book was already finished and no time to change it.

[Tony Jay]

Practically, and aesthetically, I have followed Jeff's recommendations on this issue dating back to the article in DigitalPhotoPro.
Entirely subjective of course but IMHO the results are extraordinary.
Jeff is not just a pretty face, discovering this quirk of printers and printer pipelines required a lot of insight and amazing powers of observation.
The impression at the time was that he caught out the manufacturers as well.

Tony Jay

[jrsforums]

Practically, and aesthetically, I have followed Jeff's recommendations on this issue dating back to the article in DigitalPhotoPro.
Entirely subjective of course but IMHO the results are extraordinary.
Jeff is not just a pretty face, discovering this quirk of printers and printer pipelines required a lot of insight and amazing powers of observation.
The impression at the time was that he caught out the manufacturers as well.

Tony Jay

I have a lot of respect for Jeff and am enjoying both his Digital books.

However, I believe that Jeff would be the first to admit that he did not discover this "quirk".

The fact is that using "native resolution" for printing was well known before Jeff's 2011 article.  Jeff just did not believe it and was quite adamant in many forum discussions over the years before that.

In a January 2005 article, Mike Chaney said: "...you want to use a multiple of the actual/physical printer resolution. For Canon/HP printers that would be 300 PPI for typical photos or 600 PPI for optimal quality with the finest details. For Epson printers, 360 PPI for photo quality or 720 PPI for photo quality with the finest details possible. If you use a dye sub printer, always resample to the "native" resolution of the dye sub printer, 314 PPI, 320, 480, etc. Note that depending on how effective your print driver is at stretching (or shrinking) the image to fit on the paper, you may get better results if you always resample to a multiple of the printer resolution, even if you start with a higher resolution than needed. For example, when printing to a dye sub printer that runs at 314 DPI, the 6x4 print from that 6 MP camera will likely print better if you downsample the 500 PPI image down to 314 PPI before sending it to the printer! In this case, sending an image to the printer at 314 PPI actually produces better results than sending it at the higher (but mismatched) 500 PPI!..."

[Ernst Dinkla]

I have a lot of respect for Jeff and am enjoying both his Digital books.

However, I believe that Jeff would be the first to admit that he did not discover this "quirk".

The fact is that using "native resolution" for printing was well known before Jeff's 2011 article.  Jeff just did not believe it and was quite adamant in many forum discussions over the years before that.

I share that respect after reading just a part of The Digital Print.

You are right on the resolution theme too. We all, Jeff included, gave our views on and learned off the discussions in this forum (and other places) what would be the best way to define driver quality/resolutions settings with a given image resolution. Mike Chaney on the outside, Bart van der Wolf, Jeff Schewe and more contributed here. Opinions and advice changed over the course of 3 years and came closer to Mike Chaney's views on this that he formulated much longer ago. A happy Qimage user for much longer so I had the tools to match the theory right from the beginning. It is nevertheless good to know the basics and a search on "Bart van der Wolf" in this forum will do that.

Edit: In this long discussion Jeff already had today's viewpoints but the discussion adds a lot of information:  http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=54798.0


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
July 2013, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Tony Jay]

Thanks for the correction - 2005 was a bit before my time photographically speaking!
Jeffs DPP article was the first time chronologically that I encountered the theory.

Tony Jay

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Thanks for the correction - 2005 was a bit before my time photographically speaking!
Jeffs DPP article was the first time chronologically that I encountered the theory.

Hi Tony,

As individuals we only know parts of the whole story, but as a collective (in fora), we may be able and weed through the misinformation and find a few gems.

Here is a link to an earlier (2003) post by Mike Chaney, the author of Qimage. It explains everything so clearly that it's hard to add anything subtantial to that. Mind you, Qimage has been using these principles even much longer (maybe as long ago as 1998), but Mike's linked post explains the principles well.

He also explains well that some parts of the image may benefit more from the 720 or 600 ppi driver setting than other parts.

Cheers,
Bart

[Tony Jay]

Thanks Bart.

I will follow up that link with interest.

Tony Jay

[jrsforums]

Tony, here is a whole batch of Mike's articles that might interest you

http://ddisoftware.com/tech/articles/

Jan. 2005 is the article I referenced above.