Output Resolution Recommendations
Geminii23
Posts: 1,328
So, I have been searching high and low for advice on the best settings for printed artwork in DAZ. I currently do all of my rendering at 3840x2160 and 16x9 (2 x 1080P resolution) because I am more accustomed to doing video work so having double 1080P seems to provide great resolution for web and monitor viewing. But I am now starting to get more interested in printing some of my work and I am running into some confusion and conflicts about what dimensions I need to be using for ideal printing.
Whenever I export anything from DAZ and open in photoshop, it tells me that the document is 72dpi, which to my understanding is not ideal for good quality prints which should be 300dpi. So using one of my current renders as an example, the document size says it is 53.333 inches by 30 inches at 72dpi. I was told to not upscale using Resample image method in photoshop, but if I simply change the resolution to 300dpi, my dimensions suddenly shrink to 12.8 x 7.2 inches which is really not ideal for anything but a piece of paper. I would like to be able to output my art for larger and more standard formats such as posters.
Here is where things got a bit more complicated for me. I did some math and tried to figure out how to achieve a 36 x 24 inch print at 300dpi. This would mean that I need to use 10800 x 7200 resolution output from DAZ, thus when opened in photoshop (despite it defaulting to 72dpi) I should be able to change the dpi to 300 with no loss in pixel depth/resolution and not need to resample the image.
But - this output resolution is not possible since DAZ seems to be limited to 10000 max output for width/height.
Can anyone shed some light or point me in the right direction on this?
Thanks.
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And there is the Rub. Best option, this may sound funny but let the Printer shop (I've used Kinko's) do the Resize from the largest file you can output. Poster size was doable with the Resolution staying at high quality.
So do you simply do 10000 pixels on the width and just deal with the rest in Post?
You're over thinking this. A file at 72 dpi that is 53.333 inches by 30 inches is essentially the same resolution as a 300 dpi file is 12.8 x 7.2 inches. The only difference is that the ideal viewing distance for the 53 inch image is farther away than the 12.8 inch image. Seen from the ideal viewing distance, the two images will look the same to the human eye. And quite frankly, the only reason that the 72 dpi image at 53 inches might look blurry up close is because you can see the detail so clearly at that large a size. Also, if the printing process is high resolution and the image is a quality image, your eyes won't be able to tell the difference between a 72 dpi and a 300 dpi file anyway.
But if I have an image that is only 12.8 inches native from DAZ (being the 300dpi version of the previously stated) and it is being blown up to 20x16 printing for example, wouldn't it get blurry or pixelated in the printing process? I know that in video work, if the resolution is not equal or higher than 1080p, I am not able to zoom on anything without bad blurry distortion on the clips/images.
I did not even go that large for my Angel poster. I Rendered at 4000x5200 at the Highest render settings my GPU supported at the time. When printed and mounted at 24"x 36" to my eyes it is as high quality as any store bought poster. A few of which share my wall. I carried the file in on USB card, they did all the work. I think it was even oversized and cropped but that was a bit ago now.
Right on!
Currently I am using AMR render presets, since they seem to be doing a good job with image quality. I normally just use the High Quality preset. So I wonder if I should start bumping things up to 3x 1080p or 4x 1080p resolution then.
But if I have an image that is only 12.8 inches native from DAZ (being the 300dpi version of the previously stated) and it is being blown up to 20x16 printing for example, wouldn't it get blurry or pixelated in the printing process? I know that in video work, if the resolution is not equal or higher than 1080p, I am not able to zoom on anything without bad blurry distortion on the clips/images.
Video and print is mixing apples and oranges. And remember, it's only 300 dots per inch because you made it so. A large size 72 dots per inch file will look just fine in print. As for the file in question, Photoshop can sharpen that image enough that it should look fine at 20 inches.
Also keep in mind, I was referring to taking a 72 dot per inch file and sizing it down to 36 inches. Your last question changed things to a 300 dpi file that is being sized up. That's not exactly the same thing. Sizing up is never ideal, but you can get away with it, especially with files that large pixelwise.
Video and print is mixing apples and oranges. And remember, it's only 300 dots per inch because you made it so. A large size 72 dots per inch file will look just fine in print. As for the file in question, Photoshop can sharpen that image enough that it should look fine at 20 inches.
Also keep in mind, I was referring to taking a 72 dot per inch file and sizing it down to 36 inches. Your last question changed things to a 300 dpi file that is being sized up. That's not exactly the same thing. Sizing up is never ideal, but you can get away with it, especially with files that large pixelwise.
Sorry for confusing things. What I meant by upsizing is that my original image started as 3840x2160 (or 53.333 x 30 inches at 72dpi) but if I convert it to 300dpi the new image size ends up only being 12.8x7.2 inches. Thus if I converted the image to 300 dpi I would need to upscale it to print on anything larger than that at that dpi. Does that make more sense?
Right on!
Currently I am using AMR render presets, since they seem to be doing a good job with image quality. I normally just use the High Quality preset. So I wonder if I should start bumping things up to 3x 1080p or 4x 1080p resolution then.This was his presets I used but for the DS3 version. I also use the new DS4 set which to me gives a better depth than before. Of course the Render engine has also had a few updates from DS3A to DS4.6 so I'm sure that helps.
There is a formula for this: I think...something like desired image resolution /screen dpi is what you multiply your image size by to render for that printed resolution. If you just re-size the dpi from 72 to 300 you loose a lot of detail, and it's always a good idea to have a print ready image ready at at least 300 dpi.
Nice if someone in the print industry would pop by right about now....
300PPI is for documents seen close to - held in the hand etc. - though really high quality publications may go higher, and newspapers are lower. For a poster, which is going to be seen from a somewhat greater distance, then 150 or 200 PPI will be fine, for a billboard even 72PPI will be overkill. 300 and 72 are just rough guides - the original Apple laser printers were 300DPI, and the original Mac displays 72PPI, so a 72PPI image on screen at 100% would be the same size as a 300PPI image printed at 100% which made a downsampled image ideal for the early page-layout applications but created an enduring shibboleth. Remember that PPI is just a number, telling a printer (or an application based on real-world units) how large to make each pixel.
Ok, well I am going to have two test prints made at Kinkos. The first one is 72dpi and the second is 300dpi (resampled scaling in Photoshop).
Image 1 Document settings: 16 x 20 in - 72dpi CMYK = 1440 x 1152 px dimensions
Image 2 Document settings: 16 x 20 in - 300dpi CMYK = 6000 x 4800 px dimensions
For Image 1, I took my original file 3840 x 2160 resolution render from DAZ and brought it into the new document. Since this document was at 72dpi, I need to downscale the image to fit 1440 x 1152. I am factoring in the need to crop the image due to the difference in aspect ratio.
For image 2, I brought my original file 3840 x 2160 into the new 300dpi document. Since the image size is now smaller than the printable document of 6000 x 4800, I chose to scale with Resample Image setting turned On (I know this is not advisable but I see no other option to have a properly formatted 16x20 file for comparison).
I will let everyone know what I discover after this test. Fingers crossed that these images look very close in terms of detail and print quality.
Ack! So the dufus at Kinkos wouldn't let me print out the picture I was trying to test on. It is a TMNT scene I made for my son using JoeQuick's awesome TMNT models. I tried to explain that this is fan art and educational since I am trying to figure out the right settings for my artwork.
She just gave me a blank stare. Not unlike this:
O_o
I think you have a big mess cos I didn't understand you very well.
But by rule anything printed below 300dpi is loss quality, the reason is simple, the human eye starts to not see difference at 300dpi
Then there is factors that can vary this, like the quality of the machine, the quality of the paper, etc. But to be safe the best is prepare the image at 300dpi.
So the 1st step is to know wich size you want to print. I am european and I work in cm but for example an A3 poster wich makes 29,7x42cm (11,6x16,5 inches) at 300dpi the conversion is 3508x4961 pixels, so if you render something at that size it will be ok to print for A3, is just when u render it will render in 72dpi but the pixels don't change, what changes is the cm or in your case the inches cos the image will make 123,75x175cm (48,7x68,9 inches) but at 72dpi
So if you render something at 1080p standard screen in reality you will have a print of 16,2x9,1cm (6,4x3,6 inches) without losing quality
If you wanna know the max capacity of daz wich I assume is 10000px (never tried) is: 84,67x84,67cm (33,3x33,3 inches) and you won't lose any quality
Best way to setup your image? create a new document with the exact size you want for print at 300dpi with photoshop, then go image-> image size and at top is says you the exact pixels you need. For example I want to print a photo of 10x10 inches, so I create a new document 10x10 inches, i put 300 dpi and CMYK (very important CMYK), I go to image size and it says 3000x3000 pixels. So I make a render of that size, when done I open the render and I just drag and drop the render to the new document I created. Easy.
Then you can make all the retouches you want.
Thank you for all the info there. I am aware of the difference between CMYK and RGB, but the dpi is what is throwing me.
It seems that the first problem I have is that all of my previous artwork over the last year was made at 3840 x 2160. This means that I will never be able to print these images at anything larger than 12 x 7 at 300dpi without loss in quality. Unless 72dpi proves to be sufficient for most people. In which case I can print these to a much higher dimensions.
So it seems that moving forward I basically need to make all my artwork at max dimensions from DAZ which will still only ever be 33.33 x33.33 inches. So as stated earlier, that is the Rub.
Seems like the next version of DAZ needs to support a higher max resolution for printed images if we ever want to be able to have larger presentation artwork. Otherwise we are basically hosed.
What you need to do is get a test print a 72 dpi first and see how it looks before you do anything else, because I have a strong feeling you will realize that it looks just fine.
72 and 300 aren't your only choices - you can use intermediate values too. As I said, 150-200 should be fine for posters that are meant to hang on the wall.
We always used 300dpi for magazines and comics.
For posters it depends how far the viewer is away.
Large billboards and those abri's (at busstations) have a very low res because no-one will view it from less than a few meters.
If you have an artposter, I wouldn't go below 150dpi.
Well your problem is you wanna do 36 inches, wich is not a big deal, you have many options and all depends on what you wanna sacrifice, if you render an image of max res with daz in reality you only will need to cover 800x800 pixels, wich in a image of a 10000 pixels photoshop with his algorithms will do a good job if you simply rescale with control+t.
One tip is double click the zoom tool on phtoshop and it will show you the real image size, if you don't see pixels there you won't see in print, if by any chance you still see pixels you always can apply a filter, one that works good is filter->noise->median and it will soften the pixels. There is also plugins for photoshop that helps to rescale images.
The other option is simply make the image at 200dpi wich is also good quality, and really you won't see lot of difference between 200 or 300 in a image so big.
You should tihnk all this is kinda subjective, for example I often put movies to my friends and they don't notice if they are 720p or 1080p but I do, with this is the same some people wont notice some will.
For my experience I can tell you, I have clients that are very obsesed with quality and colors and then there are others that can care less, but I also tell you most of the headaches are more in the color than in the resolution, people often send images in RGB with imposible colors and then they complain the image doesnt look like the screen.
My advise send the image with max quality you can, and don't bother a lot with the resolution but take care of the colors.
I don't think that was touched on before...but yes, rendering to a compressed low bit format, like jpeg, no matter how big you make it, is not going to be as good as a smaller (size) noncompressed, higher bit image format...
A few things:
1) The 72DPI is just what Photoshop defaults to when you load an image that does not contain any metadata giving an explicit DPI. 72 is used since it was a common DPI for displays. Aside from file formats like .psd and other 'professional use' formats, most software doesn't know about or write out a DPI value, so you almost always see the default of 72 when opening things in Photoshop.
2) The DPI in the file is meaningless in the actual print process anyway. It's just there so Photoshop can show you ruler makers in 'real world' metrics to facilitate composting and layout. The print drivers COMPLETELY IGNORE the metadata setting.
3) You can change the DPI to any value you want by 'resizing' the image and deselecting the resample options. Again, the only reason to do this is to get rulers to show up at your intended print size to composite text, create bleed crops, etc.
Those bleed crops are another thing to keep in mind that you don't ever see in the display/video world. Printers can't take your image and do it seamless from edge-to-edge. You need to have .25 to .5 inches of 'bleed' border on all sides that will not be part of the final print. So when you render your image, you need to keep in mind that the borders will be thrown away if you print edge-to-edge. When you print at crap print services like Kinkos, they don't do edge-to-edge, you get a white border around the edge.
If you are looking to do this seriously, talk to a proper print lab. They will give you details about best resolutions to use, and other specifics to facilitate getting the best out of their printing process. They may be a bit more expensive than the Kinkos/Costco/etc prints, but the quality is far superior. Labs also have proper colour calibration, for one. They also have skilled people who know how to get the best print out of their equipment and so you send them your file and they will do some processing on it to optimize it for their print engine.
As others have stated, you don't need 300DPI for everything. Super-high resolution is more for text, not images. The printers can't truly print colour in that high of a resolution anyway, nor will most people be able to see it, either. Again, talk to your lab operator to find out what resolutions they recommend. 150DPI is often sufficient, and sometimes overkill. Also, if you need to upscale, there are some pretty fancy processes for doing so, such as using fractals. The labs usually own these tools, too.
The important thing to do is make sure you have the aspect ratio of your desired print correct and account for bleed borders in your camera framing. Then if 10,000 is the max that Studio allows, the final image will still have the correct aspect, and if you're doing a giant print, the lab can apply whatever their preferred up-scaling technique is. A 10k image is actually pretty huge. That's not quite double what current high-end 35mm digital SLRs generate, and those are used for a lot of professional print/magazine work...
LuxRender will let you render at any resolution you want, though of course that means you have to optimize your materials for a different engine. Lux is only limited by your total system memory. And large prints will need LOTS AND LOTS of RAM. Going >10k in Lux you'll want 48-64GB of RAM.
There are also techniques where you break a render into a grid and render it in pieces and then merge them afterwards. There is documentation on the Lux website for calculating the windowscale settings to accomplish this. I don't know if you can do this in Studio directly. It's a lot of extra work, though. And I doubt that you really need more than 10k anyway... Even if you are doing a mega sized print, people won't be standing a few feet away looking at it. They'll be standing back to see the entire image, not "pixel peeping" the print up close.
I don't think that was touched on before...but yes, rendering to a compressed low bit format, like jpeg, no matter how big you make it, is not going to be as good as a smaller (size) noncompressed, higher bit image format...
I suspect Xdye was talking about colour calibration, not the artifacts that occur due to use of a lossy compression file format. Almost nobody does colour correction at home, as they don't have the proper hardware for it. And your average monitor is WHACK when it comes to colour calibration, because 'true' colour doesn't look good on a monitor to your average consumer that wants super brightness super saturation. But if you want a print to look like what it looks like on your monitor, you need a calibrated monitor and to go through a calibrated print process.
But yes, using lossy file formats like jpeg for submitting prints is just stupid. In my mind, it's so obviously stupid I just assume that people are using a lossless file format by default. But you're correct to point it out, as that's not an assumption one should really make... :)
There is a simple logo software program I use and the old "DPI/ PPI" conversation comes up in the forum al lthe time. Photoreal renders in DAZ are fine, when viewed on screen- high resolution - high ppi count doesnt really
If you are rednering something to print on a shirt for example, simply triple the size (keeping the same proportion) of the render size. Every 300 in size in daz will result in 1 inch printed at a "resolution" of "300 dpi". DPI is actually a term used for printers, but most folks use dpi / ppi interchangibly.
Yeah, you can take a 72 / 96 dpi photo to a printhouse and have them blow up something to poster size, and it will look pretty good--- you have to think of pizza dough when doing this.
You can only streatch out a ball of pizza dough so far before it begins to thin out, distort, and break. You still notice pixellation when a low res, or small in size image is blown up- espcially if your inamge contains straight lines at a 45 degree angles, for example. L x W = basic data.
I'm not quite sure what you are saying, so this may be agreeing with you. PPI is not a quality settings - a ten inch square image at 96PPI has more data than a one inch square image at 300PPI. If you just want an image for web/screen use simply set it to enough pixels for what you want to do; if you need to set a physical size and resolution just enter it as a sum (e.g. 300*10) in the size box in Render Settings.
Prior to my work as an illustrator I worked in prepress for 20 years. First as a photoretoucher on film in darkrooms then on Scitex workstations (these multi-million dollar a seat imaging workstations predate photoshop and Macs by about 10 years). Then SGI workstations. Print resolutions for quality images have far higher resolution requirements than screen or video.
Basically the 300DPI benchmark is where you want to be for printing. Even on a home inkject you'll get better results, smoother gradients, better edging and outlines, and detail with a higher res file. Much higher than 300DPI is not really nessesary. But getting to that benchmark is gold. I've had "OK" results at 240-220 when printing on an Epson Artisan 1400 printer, but 300 is just better even though the printer throws away the extra data. It does so in a way that helps smooth out and clarify an image. Whether a photograph or piece of artwork. Also if you are producing commerial work for a professional client such as an ad agency, publisher etc. They will require a 300DPI image. And there are people out there on the production end of that business that will be able to tell if you rendered an image at a lower resolution and upsampled it.
The math is pretty simple. If you need a 10x8 image at 300dpi the camera size you'll need to render at is 3000x2400. For a 22x19 poster 6600x5700.
This is why most pro studios have multiple renderstations and a renderfarm. (software that spreads the rendering out for an image or set of frames for video over multiple slave computers.) And now quite a few of the digital artists I know hire out their high res rendering to a renderfarm. They do screen res images for comping and approval, then send the files to a renderfarm. I have a local renderfarm set up for LightWave.. which has its own renderfarm network software that comes with the program. You have to purchase slave licenses for each machine you run it on. But it works seemlessly. One of the big downsides to Daz from what I can see is it does not support or have a multi machine rendering capability. Of course.. free is free. right?
If you need to render high res images or animation frames in Daz / Poser etc. I recommend just getting a couple of cheap desktops computers and doing your rendering on those to keep your primary computer open for modeling, post in photoshop or setting up scenes to render. Set up a small scale studio network.