Hey there:

I have a series of landscape images (shot with 14-24) that I would like to print and blow up, beyond the 8x10 sizes I have done before.

With a 12MP sensor, what is the largest print size that I could go for before things start to look a little fuzzy?

Any help from the group out there would be helpful!

Thanks!

Mark

I'm very far from an expert on this but I've taken heavily cropped images from my D100 (6Mp) to 11x14 in the past. if you're careful with upsampling and sharpening, you should be able to get 20x24 from a 12Mp image, possibly more.

It also depends on the sharpness of the image, noise and what you consider your viewing distance.

Matt Hutchinson
D700, D300, 18-35, 28-70, 80-200, 24, 50, 85, TC-14eII, SB-800's, SB-600's

With suitable care in capture, post processing and printing, you can make an exhibition-quality 24x36 from 12mp. I've had someone actually take a magnifying glass to one of mine. There was a mild complaint about a little stair-stepping on one high contrast line (about a half inch long - remember this is on a 24x36" print), but that was about it. Seriously, the detail on this one is really good. Of course, conditions were near perfect: 1/100th, f/8, 24-70/f2.8 @ 35mm, big sturdy tripod, cable release, mirror up, absolutely no wind, and details everywhere in the frame. Come to think of it that one was shot on a D2x, not the D3, but still the same 12mp.

_____
Brian... a bicoastal Nikonian and Team Member

My gallery is online. Comments and critique welcomed any time!

thanks for the responses folks!!

I recently sold a 12MP image taken with a D300 using the Nikon 10.5 fisheye and enlarged to to 30x60. After initial editing of a JPG with Capture NX2, It took careful noise reduction with Noiseware Pro standalone, enlarging with Perfect Resize 7 and sharpening with Sharpener Pro 2. I had it printed by BayPhoto on Metallic paper.

The client was very pleased with the quality, as they were very concerned about degraded image quality, especially pixelation. If you stand a foot away from the image you'll see some, but at a reasonable viewing distance it looks sharp and noisefree.

Mick
http://www.mickklassphoto.com
or
Visit my nikonians gallery

Attachment #1, (jpg file)

As the others have mentioned, you can do pretty well with a 12MP sensor at large print sizes. Landscapes are a bit tougher than other types of shots because of the fine detail, but even those can be very good. Tools like Perfect Resize will increase the likelihood of good results if you use its presets for landscapes and then follow-up with sharpening intended for finely detailed subjects (plus output sharpening). If you don't have Perfect Resize or don't want to buy it (it's not cheap), adding some mid-tone contrast can help with perceptions of sharpness. There are a bunch of tutorials on the internet regarding how to do it manually, most oriented to Photoshop, but you can adapt the techniques to whatever you're using. If your software tools include a clarity slider, that's similar to mid-tone contrast.

Keep in mind that most viewers (pretty much everyone but you), won't be quite as picky about sharpness as you. Most photographers, and that includes me, worry more about sharpness than we should.

Rick Walker

My photos:
GeoVista Photography

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