Digital BW, The Print

Hello Jack,

>Did you make your image evaluations on-screen or in prints?  That 
>makes a world of difference in the extrapolation game.

Of course I looked at them on screen, but the final conclusions were
drawn from the prints.  I made 8" prints, which is about as large is
these images will go and still look good.  And that's an important
point in all this.

I originally chose 8mp as the target resolution because that's what my
bigger camera gives and I'm used to working with it.  I was hoping for
larger prints.  But upsizing can't invent detail that isn't there to
begin with, it can only reproduce what's already there.  8 inches is
about all these will stand (I actually made a 14" print from one just
to see what would happen [8mp will give a print that big without
pixellation], and it looks pretty good from 5' away, but of course up
close it's not so great).

So the point is it's not necessary to upsize so much to get an 8"
print.  1.2 to 8 is a pretty radical jump.  Perhaps the upsizing
quality would be even better with a smaller jump.  My next test will
be to see if a smaller jump, say to 5mp, will produce a better 8"
print.  Maybe there's a sweet spot.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm