[barondla]

Worked a long time on a file for nice 8x12 print. Came out really good so I want to print bigger. Since it has already been sharpened, color corrected, etc. is it bad to take that file and resize for the much larger print? Would hate to have to trace around the animal again to get the sharpening correct. Also would hate to pay money for an enlargement that isn't as good as it could be.
thanks
barondla

[ChrisA]

Worked a long time on a file for nice 8x12 print. Came out really good so I want to print bigger. Since it has already been sharpened, color corrected, etc. is it bad to take that file and resize for the much larger print? Would hate to have to trace around the animal again to get the sharpening correct. Also would hate to pay money for an enlargement that isn't as good as it could be.
thanks
barondla

I think you probably need to bite the bullet and do it again if you want the best results and haven't saved the pre-sharpened, pre-resized version.

At the very least, the amount of sharpening needed depends on the final output size (in general, the bigger, the more, although I haven't done any big prints so I don't know how much more), so if you did it all for one size print, you won't get the optimum result just resizing the final file. And sharpening again may well introduce unwanted artefacts.

Shutting the gate after the horse and all, but always save the file in a lossless format (PSD, TIFF) frequently as you go along, so that you can go back.

Good luck!

[Ivan Glisin]

Simply print larger from the same file. Let the printer software scale it up (ink-jet or "wet" lab printer, same thing).

Look at it this way: if you would somehow put your final result you liked on a slide and then projected that slide on larger or smaller screens, would you resharpen or do other corrections for each size? Of course not.

And always remember: larger the print, greater the viewing distance and no point working on fine details. Your large print may as well be printed at 100 PPI and it will look just great.

(In fact, lowed PPI with relatively high DPI will render colors more accurately with ink-jets.)

[davemdsn]

Most print labs have fantastic upscaling software so unless you are talking about a mural I would let them do their job. One of my favorite labs requires that you send the images formatted exactly to 300 ppi at the desired print size and if you want different sizes you have to send a different version of each image in the correct pixel size for the print. The exception is that if you want it larger than the native camera resolution then you only crop it to the correct proportions and let them do the image resizing.