>From: "Brian Swale" <bj@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>...they just have
>installed an Epson Pro 9600 inkjet printer that will print at up to 2800 dpi.
>Repeat, 2800 dpi.
Yawn. That's the ability to place individual CMYK dots on a 2800 dpi grid, NOT
the ability to do full color at that resolution. Printer DPI specs are nearly
useless -- it's results that count. (The human eye cannot discern much better
than 300 full-color pixels per inch.)
>If I provided
>my own adjusted scan it would cost me about $33NZ (say USD15) for a print
>2x3 feet. (60 x 90 cm) and not the $NZ 50 - 70 they would charge for the
>whole job.
Good luck! At that price, you're almost certainly getting dye-based inks and
cheap media. It may have a lifetime measured in months, or at best,
single-digit years! (Good cotton watercolor paper alone costs them more than
that! Cotton paper and pigmented ink will generally last for decades.)
>On another forum, as some here will be aware, I have been asking for advice
>on setting up a capable budget computer for handling images; with this sort
>of thing in mind.
RAM, RAM, and more RAM. A 24"x36", 300 ppi image will be (if memory serves me)
about 250 MB.
IMHO, RAM is much more important that clock speed for working on large images.
You might have a 3GHz computer, but all that speed is wasted if Photoshop is
spending all its time gonig to scratch disk. Photoshop likes about 3x the image
size -- that means it alone needs 750MB to work on a 24"x36" image!
If you're REALLY interested in large images, the new PowerMac G5 is the ONLY
personal computer that can take more than 2GB of RAM (it goes to 8GB with
todays chips, and even more when larger chips come out).
Also, you'll want to invest in some up-sampling software. I've been using
Genuine Fractals for years in producing my archival prints up to 24"x36". I've
recently tested Extensis pxl SmartScale, which seems to equal Genuine Fractals
in most cases, but is considerably faster. Either of these will beat normal
(bicubic) interpolation for up-sampling. (I do stuff bigger than 24"x36", but
only from drum-scanned large format film.)
Other considerations for going big: slow, fine grained film, prime Zuikos,
adequate camera support.
Here's one of my 24"x36" backlit images:
<http://www.bytesmiths.com/Art_Gallery/99-0590-21-in_window.jpg>
--
: Jan Steinman -- nature Transography(TM): <http://www.Bytesmiths.com>
: Bytesmiths -- artists' services: <http://www.Bytesmiths.com/Services>
: HTML email goes right in the trash! Turn off HTML if you want to email me.
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