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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-26-2017, 07:22 PM
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Would make sense. 20" is the width of my monitor and you have to be pretty close to see the pixels (1920px width). I can't imagine you really have to have 3 times that resolution for a picture on a wall to look good.
I'm definitely going to contact a real small local print shop instead of a chain. I already found one that doesn't look much more expensive and claim to be experts for this kind of prints. I bet they'll be willing to answer a few questions and give me some advice to a customer who might buy a $150 product.
Plus I swear I'm not a PITA, I'm always polite with the clerks and pretend I feel bad for asking questions :-)
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-26-2017, 06:15 PM
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I know right? I wonder if the manager told me 800 PPI as a way to tell me to leave them alone and stop asking questions. Wouldn't be super nice. The shop is a Deserre (fairly common arts and crafts shop in Québec).
---------- Post added 06-26-17 at 09:18 PM ----------
That's good info, I wasn't sure whether upsampling more and then letting the printer down sample again was really a good idea. You're probably right though, it's like when you display a photo on your monitor, I noticed it never really looks as good as when you scale it for the exact pixel resolution of the monitor (might not be true for photo manipulation software but I noticed that when using pictures as desktop background).
---------- Post added 06-26-17 at 09:27 PM ----------
Stressing out less sounds like a good idea :-)
It's a vacation picture I'm going to hang in my bathroom to have something nice to look at while pooping, that's probably why I'm being so anal about it (pun intended).
I guess I want to just do it right (or not completely screw it up) and not pay 150 bucks for something that's going to be really ugly.
I'm not really pressed for time, my point was simply that if I do a cheap poster first for testing purposes it might take 4 weeks for that two so I will take two months total...
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-26-2017, 02:02 PM
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Lots of good contributions in this thread. A lot more than I would have hoped anyway. I think I learned a lot about the difference between input and output printer resolution and so on.
I asked the person in the shop to check with the manager who (supposedly) checked with the print shop (photos are not printed on site), and they now tell me the native resolution they recommend is 800 PPI, which sounds insane.
I figured I might try to process it with On1 to scale it up to 800 and then their printer will scale it back down to its own actual max input resolution.
The shop I go to definitely isn't super professional as they don't print on site, they can't inform you about ideal resolution and they don't provide color profiles, but at least they're fairly cheap compared to other options I have found around here, and the samples they display in the shop look great.
I would definitely buy a smaller sample as a test, were it not for the 4 weeks delay (and the price of course). A 20"x30" print is about 150 CAD so I figured I might as well go for it.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-19-2017, 08:25 PM
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Okay I'm trying On1 Perfect Resize 10 right now and I have to say I'm really impressed with the results. It's even better than the algorithm offered in ACDsee Ultimate Clear IQZ algo (which isn't half bad itself).
It's crazy how the result stands to scrutiny. I'm pixel peeping at max resolution on my monitor and can barely see any artifact.
I think I'm going to go with this one. The free trial lasts 60 days. If I still need it after that I'll think about buying it. It's a bit expensive for a software that does just one thing though, especially if you're an amateur like me.
If anybody is interested, I downloaded from here. It includes the free trial which I didn't find any mention of on the official website.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-19-2017, 08:10 PM
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fantastic tool! I'm totally bookmarking that one.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-19-2017, 08:08 PM
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I already asked the print shop, they told me 300 to 350 ppi is recommended. They don't do any upscaling though so it's up to me to find how to do it properly I guess (which is why I'm currently hanging out on this forum).
It's for a bathroom, not an art gallery, and I don't think we're going to look at it from extremely close (it's going to be above the bathtub so you won't even be able to really stand right in front of it).
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-19-2017, 07:02 PM
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Thanks, I'll check it out if I manage to get the plugin to work with ACDsee Ultimate 9.
---------- Post added 06-19-17 at 10:11 PM ----------
The K-10 outputs a max res of 2592 x 3872 if I'm not mistaken (10.2 megapixels), which corresponds to 129ppi at 20" x 30" if my calculation is correct. The fact that you managed to get good results is encouraging. I'll check out Perfect Resize for sure. Did you check out my picture? What do you think?
Also, am I wrong in thinking that such a software is always needed when printing this kind of format? I mean even a 36 megapixel camera wouldn't be nearly enough to reach 300ppi on a 20x30...
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
06-19-2017, 06:04 PM
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Hi all,
I'd like to print a 20" x 30" on acrylic because those prints usually look great and it's for a bathroom wall (resistant to humidity). Problem is the resolution.
I read that it's best to have a 300ppi resolution minimum, but my camera doesn't go above 200 for that size (Pentax K-3), plus I screwed up when taking the picture and took it in medium res jpg instead of RAW by mistake, so my resolution would be something like 150 ppi.
I still tried to do my best, used the clear IQZ algo (supposed to be a really good algo) in ACDsee to upscale my photo, adjusted the sharpness...
I'd like a second opinion before I spend about 150 CAD on a print that might look bad.
What do you think, is the resolution good enough?
What about the contrast, brightness, too dark?
I mean it looks okay on my screen, which just happens to be 20" wide, but I have no experience printing at that format.
Any other recommendations for a large acrylic print?
Dropbox - IMGP7701-2iqzs2.JPG
thanks a lot
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
01-27-2016, 07:43 PM
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Here's my ULTIMATE tip:
...(pause for dramatic effect)...
don't forget to have fun and be creative!
You can try to add a tilt-shift effect to a photo, maybe take a picture of the moon, or get a fish-eye if you don't have one already, you can do some really fun stuff with that! Also browse forums (this one) and photos sites to get ideas: a guy on this thread posted that if you shoot a plastic dinosaure from below with a wide angle lens, you can make it look like a real dinosaur is walking in the street. Just how cool is that!
I don't care if I don't win the lens, browsing this thread was worth it just for the ideas I got out of it.
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Forum: Monthly Photo Contests
09-02-2015, 04:50 AM
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
12-14-2014, 08:23 AM
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-06-2014, 08:10 AM
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True, it's important to compare programs in the category they belong. ACDSee Pro is definitely more in the Lightroom category than Photoshop. It doesn't have layering but it does have masks and pixel level editing. I just found ACDSee easier to use as LR and the additional functionalities are great (in the edit panel). It might be a question of personal preferences. Also ACDSee is only for Windows, which is probably also why it's less popular in the first place.
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
12-04-2014, 08:40 PM
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The nice thing those days is that you can try pretty much any of the major programs for 15 or 30 days for free (enough to tell if you like or not).
After having used Lightroom for a while I liked it but wasn't ready to go with their new subscription service.
I went ahead and tried Paint Shop Pro X7, Photoshop element and ACDSee Pro 7. I found Photoshop Element lacking in features (it's clear they want enthusiast photographers to go with the Creative Cloud). Paint Shop Pro was slow as hell, had obvious bugs and a clunky interface.
The winner: ACDSee Pro 7. I actually liked it so much that I upgraded to the 8 as soon as it came out. I'm really surprised this software doesn't get more credit among photographers. It has absolutely all you need, great raw conversion, fast and powerful adjustments and by far the best file management system. And the workflow is just great. It's like having Lightroom and all the Photoshop features useful for photo editing in one package.
I don't work for ACDSee or anything, but it really irritates me to hear everybody praise Adobe when clearly there are great alternatives out there that nobody seem to talk about. I couldn't even find a proper review before just deciding to go with the trial.
Maybe I'm just looking for someone to validate my opinion and tell me that ACDSee Pro is indeed really good and I'm not crazy.
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Forum: Pentax Forums Giveaways
12-04-2014, 07:59 PM
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Hey I could do with a lens like that! I would probably sell my Sigma 30mm f1.4 (art).
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-04-2014, 04:51 AM
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Thanks, Doundounba. It's in special order though, estimated delivery 3-4 weeks. I ended ordering from B&H: with taxes, shipping and handling and even with the currency conversion rate it ends up being cheaper. Sucks for Canadian businesses but I didn't really have a choice for this one.
Not sure why this lens seems so hard to find for Pentax, given the reviews and the price, I assumed it should be fairly popular! It's not like Pentax offers anything similar in this price range anyway.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
06-01-2014, 12:36 PM
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Hi guys,
sorry to bump that thread but has this lens been released in North America yet or was that release date only for Japan or something?
I think I'm interested but I just can't find any website listing it in my neck of the woods (Canada). Can only find the Nikon and Canon versions, the usual US websites that ship cross border don't list it either.
Some of you have been able to get it so would you mind telling where and for how much?
thanks!
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