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Author Topic: Finest Detail  (Read 3259 times)

steverap

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Finest Detail
« on: February 14, 2019, 11:00:17 am »

I have an Epson P800 and I've gone back and forth about the value of the Finest Detail setting in Photoshop's Print module. Thoughts?
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #1 on: February 14, 2019, 11:07:19 am »

What do you mean by "gone back and forth"? Does it mean that you tried making the same prints with and without <Finest Detail> being active? Be guided by experimentation and the results that you find more visually appealing.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #2 on: February 14, 2019, 11:13:20 am »

I have an Epson P800 and I've gone back and forth about the value of the Finest Detail setting in Photoshop's Print module. Thoughts?

Hi,

When you have more than 360 PPI of data at the intended output size, always use the 'Finest Detail' setting.
But also make sure you first resample your output to 720 PPI and add output sharpening after the resizing for best results.

Cheers,
Bart
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #3 on: February 14, 2019, 11:49:19 am »

That all raises a question about whether you really need to print beyond 360PPI for most kinds of photographic images in order to reproduce all the real image detail you're likely to see. The only way to know for sure with one's own photos is to experiment a bit and judge for oneself what looks better.   
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digitaldog

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #4 on: February 14, 2019, 11:53:00 am »

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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2019, 10:29:33 am »

https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=58368.40

and there have been more, long ones too where experts learned things as well.

Search Bart van der Wolf, Jeff Schewe, DPI, PPI, ant-aliasing, Fine Detail in this forum and take some hours to read it all. Since the discussions cameras and lenses improved in resolution, upsampling routines too and even inkjet papers did improve. You can either go by what the eye might be able to see at a distance or always try to get the best print possible as there will be people like me that also look at nose distance before taking the right viewing distance.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2019, 11:21:34 am »

https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=58368.40

and there have been more, long ones too where experts learned things as well.

Search Bart van der Wolf, Jeff Schewe, DPI, PPI, ant-aliasing, Fine Detail in this forum and take some hours to read it all. Since the discussions cameras and lenses improved in resolution, upsampling routines too and even inkjet papers did improve. You can either go by what the eye might be able to see at a distance or always try to get the best print possible as there will be people like me that also look at nose distance before taking the right viewing distance.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

And my new favorite upsampling tool, to achieve native printer resolution @600 PPI or 720 PPI, is TopazLabs' A.I. Gigapixel.
It even adds detail, if the source image doesn't have enough, so the printer will need all of its PPIs to render the detail.

Having to use standalone applications for the final steps doesn't make for a good workflow, but it does create superior prints ...

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: February 15, 2019, 07:07:33 pm by BartvanderWolf »
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nirpat89

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #7 on: February 15, 2019, 11:31:03 am »

It even adds detail, if the source image doesn't have enough...


I have seen this being said before too and it is something I do not understand.  How can it add details when the image does not have in the first place.  And if it does, how realistic can it be and why would you want a program to add details to the image.

:Niranjan.
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Bart_van_der_Wolf

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #8 on: February 15, 2019, 11:52:06 am »

I have seen this being said before too and it is something I do not understand.  How can it add details when the image does not have in the first place.  And if it does, how realistic can it be and why would you want a program to add details to the image.

Hi Niranjan,

It does so by replacing detail with higher resolution detail, which it was trained to do by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) process. So we're not talking about traditional resampling, it comes closer to replacing.

Such an AI process gets fed tens of thousands of before/after examples, which allows it to learn what the higher resolution probably should look like, given the lower resolution example of it. It won't be 100% accurate, there are just too many possible image fragments to learn from, but close enough to fool our eyes. And remember, we're talking about very small detail at 600 PPI or 720 PPI, so it will be hard to spot the pixels that were guesstimated wrong. It just needs to be credible enough, and that's what it achieves.

Cheers,
Bart
« Last Edit: February 15, 2019, 07:06:39 pm by BartvanderWolf »
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nirpat89

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #9 on: February 15, 2019, 12:11:53 pm »

Hi Niranjan,

It does so by replacing detail with higher resolution detail, which it was trained to do by an Aritificial Intelligence (AI) process. So we're not talking about traditional resampling, it comes closer to replacing.

Such an AI process gets fed tens of thousands of before/after examples, which allows it to learn what the higher resolution probably should look like, given the lower resolution example of it. It won't be 100% accurate, there are just too many possible image fragments to learn from, but close enough to fool our eyes. And remember, we're talking about very small detail at 600 PPI or 720 PPI, so it will be hard to spot the pixels that were guesstimated wrong. It just needs to be credible enough, and that's what it achieves.

Cheers,
Bart

Thanks Bart for the concise explanation.  It's going to take me some time to fully grasp what is going on but this is a good start... :)

:Niranjan.
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digitaldog

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #10 on: February 15, 2019, 12:19:09 pm »

I have seen this being said before too and it is something I do not understand.  How can it add details when the image does not have in the first place.
Using the same magic marketing algorithm's the company’s other product uses to convert a JPEG to raw and allow you to edit a JPEG as if it were raw data.  ;D
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #11 on: February 15, 2019, 01:03:29 pm »

Using the same magic marketing algorithm's the company’s other product uses to convert a JPEG to raw and allow you to edit a JPEG as if it were raw data.  ;D

I can relate to your skepticism Andrew, but I think Bart's explanation of how A.I. differs from conventional technology deserves consideration, so the only way to know for sure whether this new product adds value is to try it and see. I'm thinking of doing that; but in the same breath should mention that I've tried a lot of different sharpening approaches and so far none of them beats Photokit Sharpener 2 for flexibility and natural-looking outcomes. Just to say that even though it is out of support and up-dating, it still sets a high bar for any sharpener.
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digitaldog

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #12 on: February 15, 2019, 01:23:51 pm »

I can relate to your skepticism Andrew, but I think Bart's explanation of how A.I. differs from conventional technology deserves consideration, so the only way to know for sure whether this new product adds value is to try it and see.


Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I'm not knocking A.I. Nor that a product using it (or not) can't improve an image. That's expected for the price of admission. I'm asking for evidence actual data is being created (on top of extraordinary evidence never provided about Topaz's new product that converts JPEG to raw as we both have discussed).
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Wayne Fox

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #13 on: February 15, 2019, 04:20:26 pm »

I have an Epson P800 and I've gone back and forth about the value of the Finest Detail setting in Photoshop's Print module. Thoughts?
To sort of summarize what the conclusions have been about the setting itself over the past few years, it forces the printer driver to send 720dpi data to the printer instead of the standard 360 dpi.  the logic is if your image is below 360 dpi at the size you are printing it at, there isn’t anything to gain.  If you image is above 360dpi it prevents downsampling the data.  As to the actual visible results, that will vary image by image, but I believe Jeff Schewe and others (myself included) on some images fine detail will render better in the printed output.
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Paul Roark

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #14 on: February 15, 2019, 04:59:01 pm »

And my new favorite upsampling tool, to achieve native printer resolution @600 PPI or 720 PPI, is TopazLabs' Gigapixel A.I.
It even adds detail, if the source image doesn't have enough, so the printer will need all of its PPIs to render the detail.

Having to use standalone applications for the final steps doesn't make for a good workflow, but it does create superior prints ...

Cheers,
Bart

I agree.  As a practical matter it is also a sharpening routine that does not add halos.  Occasionally it'll add garbage that needs to be eliminated by making an up-res'd image of the same size in PS and using it as a lower layer, then erasing the garbage that AI Gigapixel added by mistake.  This AIG is a real step forward in our software tools.  Good job Topaz.

Note also, however, that it won't take an un-sharp, bad file and make it good.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2019, 08:38:54 pm »


................ I'm asking for evidence actual data is being created (on top of extraordinary evidence never provided about Topaz's new product that converts JPEG to raw as we both have discussed).

Did Topaz make this claim, or was it Bart several posts back trying to explain what A.I. is doing? Anyhow, the judgment on this needs to be empirical, regardless of how it works or what claims are made for it.
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Dan Wells

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #16 on: February 16, 2019, 02:59:49 pm »

Another, related point is that many printing applications resample before you get to the driver.  In almost any case, an application's resampling will be better than the driver's, which used to be a simple nearest neighbor algorithm - I think some newer drivers may use somewhat more sophisticated bilinear resampling.

Lightroom's resampling, for example, is much better than that - the most recent several versions have used something put together by Jeff Schewe and the Pixel Genius team (Jeff, if you're around, can you post what it's doing)? Not a whole lot of control as implemented in Lightroom, but very nice results - it resizes, then does a competent job of output sharpening. QImage has several different sophisticated algorithms with quite a bit of control. Topaz (or any other plug-in worth buying) will offer more control than Lightroom and better algorithms than the driver.

When I last printed from Photoshop (I always use Lightroom now), it didn't resize on its own. Unless you performed an explicit resize step (in Photoshop itself or a plugin, it sent to the driver at whatever resolution it had. You want to resize and output sharpen using either Photoshop's own tools or your favorite plugin, unless Photoshop's behavior has changed.

Whatever you use, there are two goals:

1.) Don't downsample - set your output resolution to 300 dpi (Canon printers) or 360 dpi (Epson printers) unless you have more resolution than that in the original image. If your original resolution is higher than that at your output size, set output resolution to 600 dpi (Canon) or 720 dpi (Epson). Technically, these numbers are ppi, not dpi (dpi is the number of individual color sub-dots that make up the pixels, and it's much higher), but most applications label it dpi. You can't generally set true dpi directly in photo applications, so the obvious output resolution setting in Lightroom, Photoshop or your plugin should be 300,360, 600 or 720 (whichever is appropriate for your printer and image).

The one case in which you have to downsample is if your original resolution is higher than 600/720 dpi (printing 8x10 from a Z7, for example). In that case, set your output resolution to the higher option your printer supports. Lightroom and most plugins should automatically use a downsampling-optimized algorithm in that case, and Photoshop has at least one choice marked "best for downsampling".

2.) Don't let the driver resample. Driver resampling is both unsophisticated and takes place after output sharpening. If your output resolution is 300 or 360 dpi, leave the "finest detail" or "highest resolution" checkbox unchecked - checking it will cause a driver upsample. If your output resolution is 600 or 720 dpi, check the box - leaving it unchecked will cause a driver downsample.

I don't know if HP printers are 300/600 dpi or 360/720...


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digitaldog

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #17 on: February 16, 2019, 03:30:17 pm »

According to Schewe, it's not the driver but the OS that resample and not equally. At least for Epson and Canon native print drivers.
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deanwork

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2019, 04:50:53 pm »


HP Z printers are 300 and both brands are thermal heads with 12 channels of ink. The latest Z printers have less ink slots and different dot configuration engineering. The latter being a big innovation according to HP, though they’ve been out over a year now and I’ve yet to hear any end user discuss or describe these improvements.

The Canon PS Plugin also resamples in its own way own way that I find very effective, where you can also set your own degree of output sharpening. I find it very similar to what I’m seeing with Q-image on my Z printers.



Another, related point is that many printing applications resample before you get to the driver.  In almost any case, an application's resampling will be better than the driver's, which used to be a simple nearest neighbor algorithm - I think some newer drivers may use somewhat more sophisticated bilinear resampling.

Lightroom's resampling, for example, is much better than that - the most recent several versions have used something put together by Jeff Schewe and the Pixel Genius team (Jeff, if you're around, can you post what it's doing)? Not a whole lot of control as implemented in Lightroom, but very nice results - it resizes, then does a competent job of output sharpening. QImage has several different sophisticated algorithms with quite a bit of control. Topaz (or any other plug-in worth buying) will offer more control than Lightroom and better algorithms than the driver.

When I last printed from Photoshop (I always use Lightroom now), it didn't resize on its own. Unless you performed an explicit resize step (in Photoshop itself or a plugin, it sent to the driver at whatever resolution it had. You want to resize and output sharpen using either Photoshop's own tools or your favorite plugin, unless Photoshop's behavior has changed.

Whatever you use, there are two goals:

1.) Don't downsample - set your output resolution to 300 dpi (Canon printers) or 360 dpi (Epson printers) unless you have more resolution than that in the original image. If your original resolution is higher than that at your output size, set output resolution to 600 dpi (Canon) or 720 dpi (Epson). Technically, these numbers are ppi, not dpi (dpi is the number of individual color sub-dots that make up the pixels, and it's much higher), but most applications label it dpi. You can't generally set true dpi directly in photo applications, so the obvious output resolution setting in Lightroom, Photoshop or your plugin should be 300,360, 600 or 720 (whichever is appropriate for your printer and image).

The one case in which you have to downsample is if your original resolution is higher than 600/720 dpi (printing 8x10 from a Z7, for example). In that case, set your output resolution to the higher option your printer supports. Lightroom and most plugins should automatically use a downsampling-optimized algorithm in that case, and Photoshop has at least one choice marked "best for downsampling".

2.) Don't let the driver resample. Driver resampling is both unsophisticated and takes place after output sharpening. If your output resolution is 300 or 360 dpi, leave the "finest detail" or "highest resolution" checkbox unchecked - checking it will cause a driver upsample. If your output resolution is 600 or 720 dpi, check the box - leaving it unchecked will cause a driver downsample.

I don't know if HP printers are 300/600 dpi or 360/720...
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Mark D Segal

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Re: Finest Detail
« Reply #19 on: February 16, 2019, 05:04:01 pm »



Lightroom's resampling, for example, is much better than that - the most recent several versions have used something put together by Jeff Schewe and the Pixel Genius team (Jeff, if you're around, can you post what it's doing)?



As far as I know, Pixelgenius did not work on resampling in Lightroom. It worked on sharpening.
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