My question is - What's the list opinion on this ? Will 3,000 x 2,000 Nikon D100 pixels do the job ?
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I was under the impression that RIPs made a good job of interpolating up for poster production, and that anyway the dpi was very small on this kind of production, which I would surmise will work in my favour. Am I correct ?
Obviously you can res anything up as far as you want, but the detail in the original capture is paramount. Any artefacts in, say hair, or colour fringing on high contrast edges will be amplified by enlargement.
I have both Sinar 23 backs and a Fuji S2 which I can set to export at about the same resolution (3000x2000 ish). There are no problems whatsoever with the Sinar 4-shot files on billboards. When I use it on one shot however and need to blow it up I usually find I have to clean up areas such as hair, and hard diagonal lines can be a problem with stepping.
The S2 (comparable to a D100) needs quite a lot more work, but then I tend to use it on more lifestyle sort of pictures where you're not likely to find critical detail. I've found that if you enlarge the files 200%, then the sharpening you need to apply to bring the snap back does degrade fine detail quite a lot.
As you say the screen on posters however is quite low, between 48 and 120 in 48 sheet, and the viewing distance quite big. I've found as a rule of thumb that if the file shows no problems as an A3 inkjet then it's going to be OK as a 48$ poster.
Mike Russell -- Mouse in the House, London http://www.mouseinthehouse.co.uk =============================================================== GO TO http://www.prodig.org for ~ GUIDELINES ~ un/SUBSCRIBING ~ ITEMS for SALE
