D300-Raw-Print Size


mactreouser

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Sep 22, 2007
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Hi,

May be I asked a question which already have the answer in the manual, but I can't find it, that's why need your help here!

D300, shoot in Raw. How large is the largest print size c'ld it goes for? 2ndly, what s'ld I concern while open Raw in photoshop (setting) before use it in photoshop design?

Many thanks!
 

D300 sensors has 4,288 x 2,848 pixel arrangement.

Using simplistic calculation of 300 pixels per inch, you are going to get 14.29 inches by 9.49 inches.

Ensure that the Photoshop and the Adobe Camera Raw version are compatible with each other and compatible with the D300 NEF (Nikon's RAW) file format before starting to use.
 

Squid said:
D300 sensors has 4,288 x 2,848 pixel arrangement.

Using simplistic calculation of 300 pixels per inch, you are going to get 14.29 inches by 9.49 inches.

Ensure that the Photoshop and the Adobe Camera Raw version are compatible with each other and compatible with the D300 NEF (Nikon's RAW) file format before starting to use.

Thanks & appreciate!

How to ensure the compatibility of Photoshop version & NEF? as long as be able to open the file means compatible?

Thanks again!

P/s: say, I gonna use for design in A1 size, how much MP from the Camera that I need?
 

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you just need to interpolate to the print size you want, 300ppi multiply how many inches of your photo print you want to print that you know what is the pixel size you need.
 

catchlights said:
you just need to interpolate to the print size you want, 300ppi multiply how many inches of your photo print you want to print that you know what is the pixel size you need.

Thanks for the answer but may be I'm not that smart. In fact, I really need your help for that, hope you c'ld give me a hand! Say, I got a photo shoot in D300 Raw. Now open with Photoshop for Raw. Then what s'ld I do now to "interpolate" the photo to A1 size for print?

Appreciate!
 

A1 paper size is 841 × 1189 mm or 33.1 × 46.8 inches, so to print with 300ppi your image size need to be 9930x14040.

process your image in photoshop and crop into the ratio of 1:1.41, follow by resampling the images to 33.1" x 46.8" in 300ppi, apply UnSharpMask (how much to add is according to your taste) after you have resampling your image.

it is a good idea to crop out some small parts of the images to run test prints before you print a large print.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/resizing-vs-resampling.php
 

Under the "Image" menu, look for "Image Size". Ensure "Resample Image" is checked, and for your enlargement scenario, choose "Bicubic Smoother" for good quality enlargement resize. Change the resolution based on "pixel/inch" to value of 300. Change the width and height using whichever metric you wish. The Width and Height in pixels count will be calculated for you automatically.

One thing to take note is enlargement of extreme size is not recommend because you will end up with soft image, which can be bad depending on the starting size and the ending size and how far your audience are looking at the image from. Should you need to enlarge like 2x the original size, I recommend using Genuine Fractals's Perfect Resize. It gives better output that PS simple resizing. GF PR offers vectors recognition on the colours region to maintain as much as possible the sharpness of the final output by controlling which area to scale up linearly and which area to scale up less because of the edges in those area.

Thanks for the answer but may be I'm not that smart. In fact, I really need your help for that, hope you c'ld give me a hand! Say, I got a photo shoot in D300 Raw. Now open with Photoshop for Raw. Then what s'ld I do now to "interpolate" the photo to A1 size for print?

Appreciate!
 

A1 paper size is 841 × 1189 mm or 33.1 × 46.8 inches, so to print with 300ppi your image size need to be 9930x14040.

process your image in photoshop and crop into the ratio of 1:1.41, follow by resampling the images to 33.1" x 46.8" in 300ppi, apply UnSharpMask (how much to add is according to your taste) after you have resampling your image.

it is a good idea to crop out some small parts of the images to run test prints before you print a large print.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/resizing-vs-resampling.php

Under the "Image" menu, look for "Image Size". Ensure "Resample Image" is checked, and for your enlargement scenario, choose "Bicubic Smoother" for good quality enlargement resize. Change the resolution based on "pixel/inch" to value of 300. Change the width and height using whichever metric you wish. The Width and Height in pixels count will be calculated for you automatically.

One thing to take note is enlargement of extreme size is not recommend because you will end up with soft image, which can be bad depending on the starting size and the ending size and how far your audience are looking at the image from. Should you need to enlarge like 2x the original size, I recommend using Genuine Fractals's Perfect Resize. It gives better output that PS simple resizing. GF PR offers vectors recognition on the colours region to maintain as much as possible the sharpness of the final output by controlling which area to scale up linearly and which area to scale up less because of the edges in those area.

Friends,

You guys are really helpful, appreciate again here! :D
Will try to understand it by go through once on Photoshop then and will update here soon.
Btw, the quality option on D300 (Lossless Compressed, Compressed and Uncompressed) will affect the file size (dimension of printing size) or the quality though it mentioned Will Not effect the image quality?! Thanks for the explain.
And, What s'ld goes for the Bit Depth? 12-bit or 14-bit to get better quality?
Still, it do mentioned "Print Size Decreases as printer resolution Increases", which means, when set dpi to 300 it may bring the print size down? So, how much you'll set for printing (output printing~factory)? 180dpi, 200dpi good enough? Do big banner needs such high dpi too?

Sorry for that bunch of questions, haaa... You guys really help me a lot! ;) Thanks and hear from you soon.
 

Btw, the quality option on D300 (Lossless Compressed, Compressed and Uncompressed) will affect the file size (dimension of printing size) or the quality though it mentioned Will Not effect the image quality?! Thanks for the explain.
And, What s'ld goes for the Bit Depth? 12-bit or 14-bit to get better quality?

Read this to understand more http://terrychay.com/article/lossy-raw-compression.shtml
It is very technical, so be prepared for some more reading than just the article above.

Still, it do mentioned "Print Size Decreases as printer resolution Increases", which means, when set dpi to 300 it may bring the print size down?

The statement above should be referring to print size related to image size in pixel and resolution. You see, as far as all raster file formats that I have read on and came across, they store the pixels as it. It can be in various RGB arrangement format but ultimately each pixels are stored as is in their own algorithm. There is no print size in it, even if it is, it is a redundant value. Resolution of the image will be 1 or 2 values depending on the file format and simply indicate "How many pixels per inch"

Given a 100 x 100 pixel image, if the resolution is 100dpi, the print size will derived to be 1inch. If the resolution is 20dpi, the print size will derived to be 5inch. Unlike the resize approach I gave you, that include resampling which will interpolate or shrink as accordingly based on the required resolution and print size. So that resizing technique I gave is for resizing your image size, not the print size.

If you choose to uncheck the resample checkbox, then it will be just playing with paper values which are not affecting the image data at all. You will find such resizing technique are extremely fast because your file size will very likely retain the same, just some values in the file changed.

Get it so far ?

So, how much you'll set for printing (output printing~factory)? 180dpi, 200dpi good enough? Do big banner needs such high dpi too?

Typical print house will ask you for image file of between 250 and 300 dpi. At least that's what I encountered. Anything more you are just flooding their system to resample down for the printer in the system. Those inkjet printers that print at 2880dpi are native resolution, but not pixel resolution. because it involved CMYK, therefore having each droplets of ink to be any of the colour does not fully represent your 16.8M colours unless half toning is used. I'm not expert in this area to give you indepth knowledge regarding this. Technologies of inkjet have increased a lot since last 10 years, probably now good printers yield higher than 300dpi, but I don't think you need to go any higher than 300dpi when your audience eyes are not exactly focusing on quality only. No matter how big your banner is, 300dpi is more than enough at the moment.

Dropping less than the required dpi is a trial and error in my opinion. Please do the trial ok ?

By the way, someone also is enquiring on related topic and you might wanna read the thread to understand more ?
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/threads/976008-Does-Dpi-even-matter
 

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Wow.. Learnt a lot! Many thanks. Need some time to go thru the articles...

Erm..1 more thing that I'm not sure as below. Say, now 12MP (NEF) gives us A3 print size (so called). Then s'ld I resample the image before, though the design size is A3? Or, just use the original will do?

P/s: NEF open in photoshop shown as 240dpi, am I correct ?
 

I assume your question is if you take a photo from a D300 at 12MP, what you should do with regards to its size to get to the final printed output.

Since the topic is just about print size, this is what I will recommend.

When you approach your photo taking, frame properly to avoid unnecessary crop. Now it seems irrelevant to pixel count, but if you need to crop, that means your source image is smaller and you might just need to enlarge. Minimize this step will help get you the largest image you can get from the source. Remember that optical enlargement by your lens is the best quality you can get out of a scene versus any digital solution.

Using 300dpi as the final output, for a 4R (4" x 6") size, it would ideally be 1200 X 1800 pixels. If your image is somewhat smaller, then enlarge as accordingly by resampling with bicubic smoother algorithm. But before doing that, you will wanna apply noise reduction if the image is noisy to start with, that's why it's better that you approach the photo taking with as long ISO as possible to minimize on noise, because noise also get enlarged in the process. After the enlargement, if you find the image is soft, apply the unsharpen mask filter(yes it's "unsharpen" to make it more sharp) to sharpen your image to your preference.
On the other hand, if your image is larger than 1200x1800, then good scale down your image using the same technique but the algorithm is chosen as "bicubic sharper". It makes your image sharper in smaller size, and also less noisy in the process. You will wanna do this yourself to be more sure on the actually output, than to be done by the software in the print house because you cannot control their process easily.
Export your photograph as TIFF format because this is what I understand as the industrial standard, not JPEG, not PSD so forth for images. TIFF has all the necessary features in the file format to ensure consistent colour management transfer, layerings etc... Colour management is totally another topic to discuss on. To me, what the DPI is doesn't matter and I have came across print house don't bother too. You or them can do simple changes to this variable in the file or during printing in the software, what matters more is the pixel data. If you have insufficient data, you lost quality. If you have too much data, it can also be lost of quality when you scale down. The more quality lost when using bad scaling algorithm.

So to answer your question, resample your image in your own requirement before you send for printing.

Wow.. Learnt a lot! Many thanks. Need some time to go thru the articles...

Erm..1 more thing that I'm not sure as below. Say, now 12MP (NEF) gives us A3 print size (so called). Then s'ld I resample the image before, though the design size is A3? Or, just use the original will do?

P/s: NEF open in photoshop shown as 240dpi, am I correct ?
 

Wow...you are awesome, bro!!! :D Thanks and it's clear!
Will play around and question out if there is something else issue facing then ;)

Thanks again, All!!! ;)
 

catchlights said:
A1 paper size is 841 × 1189 mm or 33.1 × 46.8 inches, so to print with 300ppi your image size need to be 9930x14040.

process your image in photoshop and crop into the ratio of 1:1.41, follow by resampling the images to 33.1" x 46.8" in 300ppi, apply UnSharpMask (how much to add is according to your taste) after you have resampling your image.

it is a good idea to crop out some small parts of the images to run test prints before you print a large print.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/essentials/resizing-vs-resampling.php

I salute u. U r like maths genius in photography with all those calculationd!