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Advanced Photo Enlargement Processing

Pete Hellmann

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September 23rd, 2010 - 01:11 PM

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Advanced Photo Enlargement Processing

To produce the larger print sizes now available on the affordable medium format digital photo printers, requires photo enlargement techniques. Most people simply open the original photo file in their version of Photoshop, and resize the file by entering the width and height dimensions, resolution dpi they want, leave the resample option checked and click the OK thinking all is just great. This will resample the photo file and degrade the original image quality. Photoshop uses a simple bicubic resampling method to resize the file. This method actually recreates and artificially produces new pixels for a higher image resolution and larger print size. This is the action that degrades the original image.

The Photoshop resampling will have to work if that’s all you’ve got. If your photo enlargement is not too big, the degrading of the image may not be too noticeable. If you require photo enlargements much larger, or prints in the range of 16×20 and larger, simple file resampling will not produce quality results. That is why you hear all over the Web that very large print sizes are just not possible, even from the newer high resolution digital cameras. NOT SO! I print and ship photo enlargements as large as 40×60 from 6 megapixel cameras and guarantee customer’s satisfaction. Have never had one returned!

To achieve high quality photo enlargement of digital photos requires a slight shift in processing thinking and a certain file handling methodology. You will also need to purchase additional digital processing software, besides your image editing application such as Photoshop. One application is a Photoshop plug-in utilizing fractal technology for image resolution boosting called Genuine Fractals. The second application, and most important, is a very high quality RIP software, or “Raster Image Processing” program that will reprocess input files before printing. RIP software is available, and highly recommended, for use with all medium format and large format digital printers where photo enlargement is the rule of thumb. Most quality RIP software applications today also include complete color management features, along with many other amazing editing and enhancement features.

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