Fine art (museum) quality 60" wide prints?

[DougDolde]

Absolutely - I don't do my own printing and actually have no interest in doing so, presently.
But I do want to understand the realistic print size limits of my current equipment and those of other DBs.
More importantly I want to know the pre-capture and post-capture steps involved in generating an output file yeilding the highest print quality.
At that point I'd be content with handing it over to a printing pro.

What I meant though is I think you would love doing your own printing

It's way cheaper than having a lab do it once you own the printer.

I bought an HP Z5200 44" wide printer last summer and it's been great. Has a built in spectrophotometer for creating your own paper profiles. I mostly print on canvas using files from my IQ180. I haven't tested the limits yet though. Canvas however is more forgiving than paper due to the weave. That said I am amazed how much detail is there in the print. My biggest prints are 36x48 and that works out to 210 dpi. Plenty in my book.

If I went to 60" wide, I would be down to 167 dpi which wouldn't look bad on canvas. One of these days I will try it.
My Drytac vacuum/heat press has a capacity of 42x66 so it is doable. The hardest part will be making a frame that large. 36x48 frames are somewhat harder to make than 30x40. Will have to see.

 

[Mgreer316]

This is one of those issues where it doesn't matter what others say. You have to do your own testing and evaluating. There's no way around it. One man's "unacceptable" is another man's masterpiece.

 

[Egor]

Try not to confuse PPI (Pixels Per Inch) with DPI (Dots Per Inch)

They are two completely different things.

Frequency Modulated screening means all dots are the exact same size and the distance between them changes to produce density, color and gradation.

All inkjet printers use FM (Frequency Modulated) screening algorithms and there is no correlation between camera resolution (PPI) and print resolution (DPI).

We fixate on numbers like 180PPI and 300PPI for arbitrary reasons like old AM offset printing techniques (don't apply) or multiples of DPI print resolution (180PPI is half the 360DPI so its an even number...but it doesn't apply again...its irrelevant)

Whether your digital image is 1PPI or 1200PPI it is going to be interpolated into completely different values based on FM screening algorythms

 

[narikin]

Naturally we all want to know who from dpi is selling their prints to museums for $50K :thumbs:

Is your real-world name Wall or Liebowitz or Struh?

Kirk

I said I made the prints, didn't say they were my works!

Jeff Wall are $250,000 and up, Struth maybe start at $50k, and far higher for largest/ rare vintage. Leibowitz has made far too many prints at random of her work for them ever to be really worth collecting. Besides which she's really an editorial photographer, not in the same territory as the other two. But let's not go there!

 

[fotohouse]

A look at your website suggests you're in good shape on both scores.

Kirk

This.

 

[Egor]

This.

Fotohouse, I see you quote someone and then post the word "this" occasionally.
What does that mean?


e

 

[MGrayson]

"This", "+1", and "I couldn't agree more" are roughly synonyms.

--Matt

 

[jlm]

that (no need to quote...)

 

[dougpeterson]

that

the other thing

 

[jlm]

wut a teem

 

[Speedgraphic]

I've seen some images at that size which I perceived, at close inspection, to be "pretty dang sharp" from ye old 5D classic. They were from a talented photographer friend and he was knowledgeable and owned his own large format Epson. So I would agree with the notion that it mostly comes down to technique and expectations. I would also agree that film (probably from 6x7+) is best for truly large prints. Deardorff and Kodak still win that round. :thumbs: If I NEEDED to shoot digital and NEEDED to print at 300dpi, I'd stitch, or upres.

However that's only academic considering just how good all image making machines are these days. It's pretty astounding what someone can do with an RX1R2 and a tripod. A "Cybershot" for all love! I became quite pleased when MP counts out classed my 13x19 R3000. That's the largest anyone needs my photographs to be.

 

[Pradeep]

What does know all those characteristics and more? RIP's do! Let your RIP make those decisions.

In any case, all that conjecture aside, we recently delivered a large format art reproduction job of a 14ft x 10ft canvas for a world renown gallery and collector.
We shot it two ways:
1:using a Credo80 and SK120 ASPH in a 6-panel stitch
2. using Credo80/DF+/SK120makro single exposure

Although the 6-panel stitch was crazy cool to zoom in and pixel peep all the details...it took hours to get the captures and LCC and color bars and stitching and on and on; the single pop image was actually slightly sharper and resulting full size print was virtually identical at any distance beyond 4 feet.


In any case, Credo60 for 60inch prints will look fantastic, imo. If it doesn't, it has nothing to do with the resolution of your camera.

Fascinating thread. Thanks Egor, for your post, it really drives the point home.

Thus, if a well exposed and sharp image from a 60MP camera can produce a beautiful print that is 140 sq ft in size, then anything is possible with most of the gear we use today.

It truly is a fascinating world, printing large - and even though I often don't know where to hang my prints, it gives me a thrill to see my images rolling off the big printer.

In this context, size does matter

 

[msadat]

the best tool i know for printing and uprezing is qimage, it does everything and does it very well. this is a much better tool than photoshop when it comes to printing and uprezing,

Ed, John, Kirk, Jag and JeRuFo
I appreciate your inputs. Thank you.

I am going to experiment with up-sampling and printing some crops myself. I just downloaded Photoshop CC for the first time ever for my personal account, even though I developed Photoshop plugins for 4 years - crazy I know.

But as Ed said, the current printers are good at upsizing so I ought to let a fine art shop print a 60” wide print for me allowing them to do the prep work, since they would know what the heck they’re doing and I do not.

Its silly of me to doubt the print size for a 60MP back when I am sitting next to this 10 year old print in my room, from a 6MP (six MP) Nikon D50.