Printing a banner from a picture

[trancor]

Well, there was this program about 10 years or more ago, image pallet or something like that, No matter what res the image was 72 or 150 it would anylize every pixle and blow up the image to what ever you wanted it to be more efficiant than photoshop. Only problem is that it would take several hours to work.


Useless information... ANYWAY


As it goes for printing and scanning the image back in at a much higher res. This doesn't get any more information then if you simply scalled the image up in photoshop. If you're using ink jet, you'll see every little yellow cyan megenta and black dot printed. You'd need to blur the image a little to get the white from the paper out of the scaned image.




Best thing I can tell you is bump up the dpi to a minimum 200. What is wanted with printing is 250-600, along with a half inch bleed and cropping margin. 300 is ussual.

As for revamping the image, I think your going to have some retouching to do in photoshop. If you are working with text, you don't need to worry about that for resizing, but if you are working with objects and images. Change the dpi and enlarge the document with bicubic sharper scaling (in your image size window [photoshop not open], there is a pull down for how it anylizes the image for scaling.)

I'd probably go about revamping the image by smart bluring the image. This should bring out the edges of your subject more. Along with that, putting on a layer of noise with overlay, pinlight, or screen blending modes (depending on the colors in the image). This will give a little bit of difference between pixels at the higher res, so it looks like there is more detail then actualy is.

As another step, I might go over the image with a brush with spaces in it, like a brush with gaps with dodge and burn, Just going in touching up highlights and shadows; and to put a thin layer of texture to the blown up image.


I just try to add information to the enlarged document. Any textures I can overlay on top, and using the color from the base image.




If you are working with relatively solid colors and you have illustrator. I'd suggest doing a Live Trace and this will leave you with a vectorized version of your image. Just blow up the vector image to 3 feet by 3 feet and 300 dpi. I'd throw it back into photoshop just to simply overlay the enlarged original and blend it into the vectorized version. But the vector should do what you'd want for resizing nicely. You just loose alot of information, enless the Live Trace settings are set rather high.


Good luck.

Edit - In illustrator's live trace options, there is an option to resample the image too, lets say to up the 72 dpi to 300 dpi

[b9999]

I'd like to say that Trancor is not exactly right about the DPI of the image. I am a Desktop Publishing and Printing Specialist, and maximum resolution for any type of printing is 300 DPI, no printer will ever ask you for a higher resolution because doesn't need it. One may come across higher resolutions like 2400 DPI or 3600 DPI but those resolutions are used only in Computer to Film or Computer to Plate processes and they are not resolutions of graphic images but resolutions of raster points on film or plate. If your home inkjet, laserjet etc... says that it prints 2400 DPI thats a total lie.

If you need to enlarge the image for print, the first thing you need to know is, where will you print it. Different companies need different resolutions. Big format prints need less resolution ex. 5x5 metre billboard can be printed with 72 DPI or even less, so I think 3ftx3ft can be printed in fairly good quality with 150 or 200 DPI.

As enlargement of the image is concerned my ultimate tool is Alienskin Blowup it never failed me, enlarging images even by 1000% gives great results, millions of times better than enlargement with standard Photoshop resize.

You will also need to do some retouching, but I cant give you any specific advice on that since it is highly image dependant. Just use some cloning, smudge or blur pixelated edges (with tools, not filters). Smart blurring can be an option, but as I said it depends on your image. When you finish the minor retouching, sharpen the image, either use usharp mask or smart sharpen, or (best option) use HIgh Pass sharpening. For high pass sharpening you need to make a layer with all your layer merged (it goes like this command+alt+shift+N to make a new layer, and then command+alt+shift+E to merge all your layers to the new layer you just created), then give it a High Pass filter with a value of 1 or 2, you need to judge the value by the preview, it works the best when you adjust it so you see some detail and main outlines). Then give the high pass layer Soft Light or Overlay blending mode. Now you can adjust the sharpness by decreasing or increasing the opacity. :-)

[roguenroll]

didnt read your posts above, but in passing this is something I just saw
funny name too.

http://arje.net/rasterbator



photozoom is also good for blowing up pics, with better than normal quality, but
you know the rule about blowing things up, dont expect the best.

[trancor]

I'd like to say that Trancor is not exactly right about the DPI of the image. I am a Desktop Publishing and Printing Specialist, and maximum resolution for any type of printing is 300 DPI, no printer will ever ask you for a higher resolution because doesn't need it. One may come across higher resolutions like 2400 DPI or 3600 DPI but those resolutions are used only in Computer to Film or Computer to Plate processes and they are not resolutions of graphic images but resolutions of raster points on film or plate. If your home inkjet, laserjet etc... says that it prints 2400 DPI thats a total lie.

Inkjet max is 360 and a laser printer can be 1800. That is simply the restrictiveness on the nosel itself, inkjet. I've used plotter printers meant for banners, printing over 56 inches wide. That thing prints out at 1200 dpi, laser of course.

[Neil]

10"x10" 72dpi > 3'x3' 300dpi = impossible, you need to just accept that it can't be done.

Too big of a jump.That's the security about artists putting web quality images of their work on the internet. You don't have to worry about it being printed at poster quality without your knowledge.

[Collember]

a work around to this is to use Adobe Illustrator, use its Live Trace Tool. You can change the settings to make it see a range of colours and output accordingly. If you make the colour limit high enough (ofc this makes for a very sluggish computer) you can emulate the image in vectors.

On the otherhand you can make it less colours, and go for a more stylized look.

This system doesnt add detail, as it works of the detail already present, but atleast you have scalability.

The only way you are going to get your image to be of high quality - without emulating it either by vector tracing or photo enlarging, is to ask permission for use of higher quality files from the artist.

btw, when u said banner, sounded like you meant banner material. This material can only really support 100dpi, or even 75dpi...anything above 100 and ur wasting ur time :)

hope that helped.

[trancor]

Neil, any retouch artist should be able to bring a 72 dpi image up to 300 dpi and more than 3 times the size. It just takes some rebuilding and some brush work.

Collember, Like I said with the vectorizing in illustrator, you bring the image back into photoshop, blow up the original image, do a filter > other > high pass, do a smart blur, then overlay the blown up layer on top of the vector layer, that is how you get detail back into the vectorized image.

[b9999]

Inkjet max is 360 and a laser printer can be 1800. That is simply the restrictiveness on the nosel itself, inkjet. I've used plotter printers meant for banners, printing over 56 inches wide. That thing prints out at 1200 dpi, laser of course.

Yeah, that's absolutely, but my point is even if you print a gigantic banner ona a 1200 dpi plotter, you only have to provide 300 dpi files. Of course you can make your files in higher resolution, but there is no point in it, because banners of large sizes are never watched from close distance.

As far as enlarging is concerned i agree with trancor, it is possible, and any retouch artist should have no problems with that. But I repeat once again, use BlowUp.

http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/blowup_examples.html

Go there and check the examples, or download the demo (fully usable for 30 days). This plugin is just wonderful. (No, this is not an advertisement, just an advice from a satisfied customer :-) )

[Neil]

btw, when u said banner, sounded like you meant banner material. This material can only really support 100dpi, or even 75dpi...anything above 100 and ur wasting ur time :)

do a search for 'large format digital printing'. These prints do require high dpi, and it can still go on banner material. There are different grades of banner material.

[Neil]

Neil, any retouch artist should be able to bring a 72 dpi image up to 300 dpi and more than 3 times the size. It just takes some rebuilding and some brush work.

Want to put a wager on this?
I guess it depends on what you consider 'satisfactory'. Yes you CAN scale it, but it's gonna look blurry/jaggy. I mean if your only basis for this is using a home deskjet printer, then I guess everything will look great. You're talking about doing "some brush work" to an image like a forest scene or fine photography?

And it's funny how these "blow up" sites show you "proof" of their quality by using all digital images. It's still 72dpi!!

[Collember]

do a search for 'large format digital printing'. These prints do require high dpi, and it can still go on banner material. There are different grades of banner material.


you can print using 300dpi images however the material and ink (solvent based) really only supports 100dpi, a 300dpi image and a 100dpi image on banner side by side has no real difference, and if there is its minimal. Also to take into account that magazines are read from a foot or two away, and banners are not, a high res of 300dpi isnt required. And the banner i was talking of is a vinyl based synthetic nylon.

Also, most of the stuff we output is vector based, so dpi is a waste of time :)

Unlike aqueous printers (inkjets) solvent has something called dot gain, and requires heat to imbed the ink effectively, a high dpi cant be supported since the ink bleeds into itself effectively. So 100dpi does just fine. Save file size, save time, have a high quality print for what it can do.

And im sure there are different grades out there, but i was just saying that, on these particular machines, of which i thought he was talking about, a high dpi is not required.

[Collember]

Collember, Like I said with the vectorizing in illustrator, you bring the image back into photoshop, blow up the original image, do a filter > other > high pass, do a smart blur, then overlay the blown up layer on top of the vector layer, that is how you get detail back into the vectorized image.

and you can do that :P if u want the detail back lol, forgot about that ><

[tomt]

I've had great luck using Irfanview. It has a better algorithim than Photoshop for blowing up images, and it's free. Google it, I don't have their website available at the moment.

[trancor]

Want to put a wager on this?
I guess it depends on what you consider 'satisfactory'. Yes you CAN scale it, but it's gonna look blurry/jaggy. I mean if your only basis for this is using a home deskjet printer, then I guess everything will look great. You're talking about doing "some brush work" to an image like a forest scene or fine photography?

And it's funny how these "blow up" sites show you "proof" of their quality by using all digital images. It's still 72dpi!!


Hell yes, I'll put a wager on this. I made 7 posters, using photos taken with a 2.1 mega pixle camera and the banners were 36 by 24, well 37 by 25 for bleed and cropping and 150 dpl (300 dpi). And you couldn't tell the stuff was blown up like 6 times the original size. But like I said, I touched up the enlarged images.


Uh.... 72 dpi.... that doesn't matter. If something is 400 by 300 at 72 dpi. Then is blown up to 1666 by 1250 at 72 dpi, if you simple change the dpi to 300 that 1666 by 1250 image is still 5.5 by 4.1 inches. No matter how you look at it.


Anything is possible in photoshop.

[b9999]

Want to put a wager on this?
I guess it depends on what you consider 'satisfactory'. Yes you CAN scale it, but it's gonna look blurry/jaggy. I mean if your only basis for this is using a home deskjet printer, then I guess everything will look great. You're talking about doing "some brush work" to an image like a forest scene or fine photography?

And it's funny how these "blow up" sites show you "proof" of their quality by using all digital images. It's still 72dpi!!

I'd put a wager on this too. It is possible, I've done this many times, it is my everyday job. The results are not pixel perfect, crystal clear images, but they look good. Some bluriness or jaginess is not a problem since you do not watch a 5x5 metre billboard from a close distance...

[trancor]

Yeah, and then even where b9999 gets it, just add a layer of gaussian or uniform noise on top and do an overlay to it tricks the eyes.


Too much stuff you can do in photoshop

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