Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: tsinsf on March 01, 2023, 12:30:00 am
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I am in the process of making a portfolio of my landscape photos to give to my children. I picked 20 of my favorites and spent a lot of time on each one re editing, soft-proofing, and making multiple letter sized prints until I get one that seems perfect to me. I am using LR and Photoshop and printing on an Epson P900 using Moab Entrada Natural, a relatively smooth matte paper. I made my first jump up in size today from a letter sized print to a 9x13 (on 11x17 paper) and I see some obvious changes in contrast, saturation and brightness. It's as if I clicked Soft Proof again and the "pop" of the photo diminished slightly. Much subtler than jumping from a monitor photo to a soft proofed matte finish, but there nonetheless. So I am back to square one with the photo, which will need new changes in whites, blacks, contrast, etc. to retain the look of the letter sized print. However this time I am printing on larger paper and the ink use and cost of paper will add up since I am a perfectionist and will undoubtedly have to make several tries to get the larger prints look the way I want. Any workflow suggestions to keep the cost down and avoid making 2-4 large prints to get it right? Or is this just the way it is making quality larger prints? Thanks!!
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Not really an answer to your question, but it sounds to me as if your soft-proofing procedure is off. The whole point is to avoid having to make multiple hard proofs with the attendant waste of paper and ink (and time). From early on I could carefully soft-proof and the first print would, with rare exceptions, be the final print.
I might add that when I want "pop" in my prints I do not use matte paper. In fact I never use it at all. Matte is the "anti-pop."
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Thank you for your response. My question is not really about softproofing. What I am really asking is what happens to our visual perception when we blow up a photo? It makes total sense to me that brightness and darkness would appear different in a large picture compared to a small one. If you have a bright area totally surrounded by darkness in a very small print it’s going to seem very bright, but if you enlarge that photo and make the white area much larger it seems like it obviously would seem a little bit less bright. So I’m really asking what is people’s experience blowing up photos? Do they really notice no visual perceptual changes between light and dark areas? The small print looks exactly the same as the large print? No adjustments are necessary to have the visual experience seemed the same between the two photos?
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Pop is not a technical term.
Thank you for your response. My question is not really about softproofing. What I am really asking is what happens to our visual perception when we blow up a photo? It makes total sense to me that brightness and darkness would appear different in a large picture compared to a small one. If you have a bright area totally surrounded by darkness in a very small print it’s going to seem very bright, but if you enlarge that photo and make the white area much larger it seems like it obviously would seem a little bit less bright. So I’m really asking what is people’s experience blowing up photos? Do they really notice no visual perceptual changes between light and dark areas? The small print looks exactly the same as the large print? No adjustments are necessary to have the visual experience seemed the same between the two photos?
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Thank you for your response. My question is not really about softproofing. What I am really asking is what happens to our visual perception when we blow up a photo?
It can change visually yes. For many years, master print makers have added a touch of saturation or midtone contrast to account for this. Clarity in Lightroom Classic/ACR is an example of this from master printer Mac Holbert. He has/had a Photoshop action specifically for this case use.
https://www.adobepress.com/articles/article.asp?p=1223083
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Thank you for your response. My question is not really about softproofing. What I am really asking is what happens to our visual perception when we blow up a photo? It makes total sense to me that brightness and darkness would appear different in a large picture compared to a small one. If you have a bright area totally surrounded by darkness in a very small print it’s going to seem very bright, but if you enlarge that photo and make the white area much larger it seems like it obviously would seem a little bit less bright. So I’m really asking what is people’s experience blowing up photos? Do they really notice no visual perceptual changes between light and dark areas? The small print looks exactly the same as the large print? No adjustments are necessary to have the visual experience seemed the same between the two photos?
This visual experience cannot possibly be the same. After all, the sizes are different! And more of the small print image will fall near the center of your retina where color and spatial acuity are best. And you'll have to move your eyes around more to take in all of the larger image.
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"It can change visually yes. For many years, master print makers have added a touch of saturation or midtone contrast to account for this. Clarity in Lightroom Classic/ACR is an example of this from master printer Mac Holbert. He has/had a Photoshop action specifically for this case use."
Thank you for the response Andrew!
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View angle, background color, illuminate brightness, spectral power distribution, they are play a role in color vision. Some modern color models count some of these effects. But they are not contained in regular printing gamut mapping through CIELAB.