17"x22" Ink Jet Prints vs. Original Max Resolution Digital Files

[brusby]

Just had an unexpected and eye opening experience that I thought I'd share for anyone who might be interested in the subject.

First, a little background. Right out of college in the mid 70's I was fortunate to land a job at local architectural/commercial photography studio. My primary job for a couple of years was to print most of the b&w photos that came out of the studio. These were used by everyone from local architectural firm clients to magazines like Better Homes and Gardens and for brochures and catalogs published by local art and auction houses for their auctions and other publicity materials

But after just a couple of years, I got disenchanted with professional photography, changed professions, sold all my gear and didn't touch a camera for almost 40 years, till about 10 years ago.

Since I've rekindled my interest in photography, I've done only digital. So, I haven't created a physical print since the 70's.

And now to the point of all this. A good friend has an Epson SC-P900 printer and has been inviting me for quite some time to spend an afternoon at his place printing some of my images. We finally got together this past weekend. He had several boxes of large paper about 17" x 22" and although I wanted to start off with very small prints, say 4x5" until we could see how close the printer was to the original images, he wanted to print the images full size of the large paper. Which we did.

The night before we got together I made sure to calibrate my IMac monitor with IProfiler software.

I was fully expecting all sorts of issues, particularly like having shadow detail and highlight detail all wrong. Well I was totally amazed to find that the images were remarkably close to the tonal range contained in the original images.

But the big, completely unexpected surprise, and the point of this post, was the incredible level of detail that was apparent in the prints which I had not been seeing in the original digital files. In fact I was under the mistaken impression from viewing the original files on my 29" IMac monitor that the finest details were just not well resolved in most of my images. I was chalking it up to camera shake or just older lenses that were not as sharp as modern optics. But I was very wrong, at least regarding the dozen or so images we printed this weekend.

By way of example, I just posted some images of Yosemite Falls on the forum. In the original digital image the little trees in distance and much of the rock details just seem a bit blurry. You can see it in the image I posted on the forum as well as in the original image on my Flickr page. But to my amazement, all those trees and all the rock details in the granite face are bitingly sharp in the prints. I'll post the digital image below for easy access. It's apparent little details like the trees that are sharp in the print, are a tad blurry in the image below. Unfortunately I have no way to make the physical prints available for scrutiny. So, you'll have to take my word for it or better yet . . . try it yourself.

So, sorry for being so long winded. But, I'd be very curious to hear if anyone has a similar or different experience.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

When you resize an image to the final print size, it needs to be sharpened; that will make the print look much better, and if you did that with your files when you printed them, it would explain a lot of the difference. Prints just looks sharper anyway. The thing is that in a print you are seeing about 300 pixels per inch, but on screen at 100% you're seeing about 100 pixels per inch....so on screen you're just looking at it too big and that makes the fine details look softer.

 

[brusby]

When you resize an image to the final print size, it needs to be sharpened; that will make the print look much better, and if you did that with your files when you printed them, it would explain a lot of the difference. Prints just looks sharper anyway. The thing is that in a print you are seeing about 300 pixels per inch, but on screen at 100% you're seeing about 100 pixels per inch....so on screen you're just looking at it too big and that makes the fine details look softer.

Thanks Chris. The difference in dpi between print and screen does appear to be the most logical explanation. I applied the same sharpening to the print image and the screen image, so the amount of sharpening wouldn't seem to be a factor.

What's startling is images I've been working with for years which I felt were ok but not critically sharp, may need to be reevaluated. I'm not saying that such a high degree of sharpness is always critically important. It probably isn't. But the difference was startling in the images I've printed so far. And I have to admit, at least for these landscape prints, the added fine detail was kind of a treat for the eyes. The prints look amazing. Almost every tree and rock seem perfectly rendered unlike the screen image where things are just a bit fuzzy.

 

[boojum]

FWIW I have noticed images in medium format to be fuzzy and out-of-focus. Until I enlarge the image on the monitor and then I see the detail. So in my case my initial disappointment was not deserved. Perhaps the same reasons as yours: good, detailed high density images just do not display in all their glory until they are larger. I have to see if this is happening in the higher pixel count 35mm sensors. Good catch!

 

[boojum]

FWIW I have noticed images in medium format to be fuzzy and out-of-focus. Until I enlarge the image on the monitor and then I see the detail. So in my case my initial disappointment was not deserved. Perhaps the same reasons as yours: good, detailed high density images just do not display in all their glory until they are larger. I have to see if this is happening in the higher pixel count 35mm sensors. Good catch!

OK, I checked the Q3 43 and same story as the medium format. And that makes sense. The monitor I am using, a 27" one, cannot resolve the detail so it makes its best guess. I would assume a bigger monitor would reduce the problem. But we need someone who knows image handling to pass on this.

 

[brusby]

FWIW I have noticed images in medium format to be fuzzy and out-of-focus. Until I enlarge the image on the monitor and then I see the detail. So in my case my initial disappointment was not deserved. Perhaps the same reasons as yours: good, detailed high density images just do not display in all their glory until they are larger. I have to see if this is happening in the higher pixel count 35mm sensors. Good catch!

Yes, there is that effect. But this is different. Even when I enlarge images on my monitor to their largest sizes possible, fine details are still fuzzy compared to the printed versions. I would have predicted that at identical large display sizes, prints and monitor images would have looked identical. But they don't. At least, not when using my IMac 5k display.

 

[boojum]

Yes, there is that effect. But this is different. Even when I enlarge images on my monitor to their largest sizes possible, fine details are still fuzzy compared to the printed versions. I would have predicted that at identical large display sizes, prints and monitor images would have looked identical. But they don't. At least, not when using my IMac 5k display.

OK, interesting. Different manifestations of the same thing. Let's get Sonnar Brian to put on the wizard cap of his with the moons and stars and explain all of this to us.