Printing - Resolution send to the printer for best print quality?

[Gothmoth]

hello,

im from germany, i have an epson R2880 and have just started with fineart printing.
now i have read many different advices about what resolution to send to a printer.

i read that for epson you should not upsample an image in photoshop if the native resolution is over 180 PPI.
because the printer will do a better (or equal) job of upsampling the image and that way you don´t have to send as much pixel data to the printer.
michael reichmann said something like that in the LL from camera to print video too (coming directly from the mouth of the epson chief engineer).
now i have just read an article from jeff schewe, and he wrote the exact opposit of what is said in the video.  
jeff schewe writes you should upsample... for example 256 PPI to 360 PPI or 600 PPI to 720 PPI.
 
on other places i have read too, that it is best to send images with the native epson printer resolution of 720PPI, 360 PPI or 180 PPI.
how i understand that, i should resample the images in photoshop so that the image has either (exactly) 180 PPI or 360 PPI.

but imo every unneed interpolation should be avoided? not?
so is it realy better to resample a 600 PPI image to 360 PPI?
or should i upsample to 720 PPI?

lets say i have an 4552x3071 pixel image that i want to print at 13x18cm.
this image has a native resolution of 600 PPI at 13x18cm.  
if i trust some of what i have read, i should downsample the image to 360 PPI (2551x1843px).  
that can´t be right? why should i throw away all the data... is it really not need by the printer for the maximum image quality?

i hope i made it clear what im after.... even with my broken english.

i have seen the video tutorial from LL, a friend bought it and that is why i come here to ask.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Welcome aboard.
I'd suggest you make two prints of the same image using both methods and see the result.
Though there are people who can tell a lot about these things you will then have an authentic experience by yourself.
Asking people gives so terribly many answers ....
Trust your eyes !

[Tony Jay]

jeff schewe writes you should upsample... for example 256 PPI to 360 PPI or 600 PPI to 720 PPI.
 

I happen to agree with Schewe - but only after testing the hypothesis by printing a few images.
Good luck with your foray into printing.

Regards

Tony Jay

[NikoJorj]

why should i throw away all the data... is it really not need by the printer for the maximum image quality?

For downsampling, the answer is simple : send the data to the printer anyway, it could be better and doesn't cost anything (apart from a few seconds more processing time).

For upsampling, the waters begin to mix.

I'd suggest you make two prints of the same image using both methods and see the result.
[...]
Trust your eyes !

I can't agree more.
See http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/01/how-sharp-is-your-printer-how-sharp-are-your-eyes.html eg for a resolution test protocol.
Note also that you may have to enable the "fine detail" setting in the printer driver to benefit from >360ppi resolution.

My personal practice : with an R1800 (whose driver should be quite close to the one of your R2880), upsampling is done with nearest neighbor (read : big square blocky pixels), and lightroom's upsampling is vastly better until something around 200ppi ; after that, improvement is much smaller.
And I didn't see meaningful improvements to aim for "native" resolutions (ie print at 360ppi rather than 300 or 400ppi).

[Schewe]

i have seen the video tutorial from LL, a friend bought it and that is why i come here to ask.

If you saw the old Camera to Print demoing LR2, that was the old way...in the new Camera to Print & Screen video, we explained that upsampling image's whose native size at the final output size was under 360 PPI for Epson or 300 PPI for HP/Canon was better using the output sharpening in LR3 or 4. If the native rez at output size was above 360/300 then upsample to 720/600 can benefit the prints-particularly high frequency textural detail.

That's where we are now...perhaps you should have your friend buy the new video :~)

[OliviaK]

Thanks for all the suggestions here in this thread. I also wondered how I can print the photos out and getting a high quality. Most of the time a printed pic looses so much of the quality that I often refuse to do it. But I think it depends also on the printer

[Tony Jay]

Thanks for all the suggestions here in this thread. I also wondered how I can print the photos out and getting a high quality. Most of the time a printed pic looses so much of the quality that I often refuse to do it. But I think it depends also on the printer

Not knowing how you are preparing and colour managing your images, nor what printer you are using, however, in general, it is true to say that the print matches the quality of the image file from which it was generated.

Perhaps you should explain some of your issues in more detail so that they can be properly addressed.

Regards

Tony Jay