Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I have the opportunity to use a few wide format printers, mainly Epson, possibly Canon, on Weds, this week. I am wondering what image sizes you have been able to get away with? If I upsize to 300 ppi, then the tiff files are about 250MB each, which seems pretty big, they fill up my usb stick to quickly :o.

Having spent some time poking around on the net, it seems to be that anything below about 150ppi is not so good. I'm aiming for prints about 2ft by 3ft, to hang on the wall. The owner of the printers does not use Qimage, and I have no idea of the specific printer/page sizes, so 'print to file' is not really an option,  I just want to use 'hybrid se' to upsize to something that will be suitable.  So, the question is, have you been happier with smaller ppi in this situation?

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray,
I am reading your post and trying to decipher whether you have access to print on these printers, or have someone make prints on their printers.
If you are going to print to these printers, simply set your print size to the size you like, (depends on available paper etc) and print.
All the upsampling interpolation will be done by Hybrid SE as you make the print.
There is no point to upsampling an image to 300 ppi before you print.

If you are going to be using someone else's printer, then I suggest you carry a Qimage install file on a thumb drive, and install it on their computer, and follow the directions above.
You would not have to carry TIF files either, Raw or Jpg would work fine.
You can use print to file, and set that to 180 ppi at various sizes, and present those for him to print using his equipment.
If it was me, I'd make him print one using Qimage, and then see if he can match it.

Fred

Hi Fred,

Thanks for your reply. I can use the printers, with their software only (photoshop most likely, and the printer drivers). I do not want the up sizing in photoshop. It is not an option to use qimage on their site. So, if I work to 180 ppi, are you saying that will be good enough?  The raw images are about 1900 by 1200 pixels, and I'll be doing the pp home here. So 3ft at 180ppi will be 6480pixels, so I'll be up sizing by about a factor of 3.5. I suppose I could print off a few test strips here, if I get time, but I'm not sure if that will really help.

The trouble is, I'm a bit of a 'pixel peeper' (among other things  :o)

Best wishes,

Ray

Now that I have a better idea of what you are trying to do, you need to ask them what level of ppi they prefer when they use their equipment, and then make a print to file to their specs.
If it's a Canon that has an input ppi of 600, then I would make 300 ppi so the driver need only double it.
If it's an Epson, it could be 720 or 360. Either way, I'd make 360.
The size is not extraordinary at all. 24" x 36" is a common size, and most often a setting of 360 ppi in the driver will be wonderful and run much faster for them.
Fred

I think I'll reduce the number of images I was going to try, forget about canon, and take some of the images duplicated at both 180 and 360ppi. I'll let you know what happens, if I see the difference, etc.

If it works out well, then maybe next time I take it all on a notebook pc.

Ah well, wrong choice.... Only printed one canvas on the epson - very slow. Printed 7 others on the canon, very quick, but on paper. Struggled with getting it max size, not familiar with the canon way of doing things, nor Apple pc's, but at the end of the day relatively happy. My pratting about to get it to 180/360 dpi, would have possibly be better at 150/300dpi - I'll never be able to tell.

On many of my images, I use a 'fuji provia' filter, looks fine on a4 type prints. The canon printer used some high D-max paper, and has 12 inks, and the prints at the larger size - not 2ft, just 17inch paper, - were very bright, compared to my epson r1800. I'd need to tone it down a bit, and take my own software, if I have another go.

Size matters, but so do the little details, stuff you don't notice at A4, become pretty big at A2, selection boundaries, etc.

Best wishes,

Ray

Nobody said if they are using a RIP on the large printer (!?!?!)  That would be a factor.

Hi Seth,

Just the 'normal' epson/canon drivers, no RIP.

Best wishes,

Ray