Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

Good examples from the "Birds" forum on Photocamel.  I added my 2¢ worth.

http://photocamel.com/forum/birds/121782-cropping-print-size.html#post1159412

I display a 16 x 20 gallery wrap on the wall in my shop that was one of my first prints with QU and my new Epson 7900. It's a barn scene that was the result of a 60% crop from an original 1mb file, that while far from a pixel peepers ideal, really shows what QU is capable of.
It really impresses alot of people, and I still am amazed myself !  ;)
 

I felt like a Qimage evangelist by the time I finished posting in that thread.

I cannot believe the hoops through which non-Qimage users have to jump just to crop an image and get it printed on the page.  Read the later comments and you'll see what I mean.

I haven't done anything that radical, unless you count printing 5x7 from Sony Mavica files, but last year I couldn't pass up a local supplier's half-price sale on large prints.  Decided to treat myself to an 18x24.  Qimage's "Print to File" function turned my 2.8 mp original from my 8 mp p&s into a 19.8 mp file which I took to the supplier.  More than once I've taken the resulting print off the wall and handed it to someone to examine as closely as he wished.  Outstanding results from Qimage.

Want a laugh?  Google "camera resolution print size."  You'll turn up dozens of tables telling you that a photo of resolution X can only be printed thus-and-so large.  If you're a Qimage user, those guidelines are a joke.  I routinely printed outstanding 8x10s from my 4 mp Canon G2.  From my 8 mp Powershot Pro1 I printed my own stuff up to 13x19, and never hesitated to order 16x20 or larger...as long as I could prep the file with Qimage.

An acquaintance of mine is into lepidoptera. He showed me some images on his mobile phone. One was of an adonis blue - an 80k jpeg, 750 x 656 pixels. I cropped it closer to the subject area, resulting image 696 x 464 pixels. Printed it on canvas 18 inches by 12 inches. Although the fine detail is obviously not there cf a larger original file,  the resulting print, bearing in mind where it came from, is astounding. I never fret over cropping away great chunks of original image. In particular the knowing that qi in most cases makes a good job of up-sizing was one of the reasons I bought the little sigma dp1s, those images seem to allow an amazing amount of up-sizing.  You just point it at the general subject area (you can't do much else in bright sunlight, can't see the display) and do the composition in post  :D

I think you guys are only just 'scratching the surface'  ;D

Best wishes,

Ray

Probably.  I must admit that it's been years since I printed a low-res image.  And come to think of it, I printed those 5x7s from the Mavica with either Qimage Lite or Pro.  Have to dig them up and see what Ultimate can produce.

Check the latest posts in the Photocamel thread at the above link, especially this comment from a brand-new Qimage user:

I have however compared the prints from QImage to just regular printing in windows, and I must say the quality is stunning- image is sharp, colors are deep and rich, there's no comparison- QImage is miles ahead of windows print.

Sounds like another convert...

Just remembered these two shots (original, plus cropped version).  Perhaps the most severe crop I've printed with Qimage.  The 8x10 print looked great.