Buying a large format printer doesn't automatically guarantee big prints. Understanding what "big" really means and the considerations involved in producing large-scale photographs is crucial, particularly if you're planning to print at exhibition sizes.
Coming to you from Keith Cooper, this practical video looks at what it genuinely takes to produce enormous prints using Epson SureColor SC-P20500 printer, capable of handling 64-inch wide paper. Cooper walks you through a single-shot image taken with the Fujifilm GFX100S, illustrating precisely why choosing the right camera and lens combination matters when aiming for detailed, large-format prints. Using Epson Premium Luster paper, Cooper demonstrates not only the technicalities involved in printing but also discusses the practical challenges, such as handling large prints without damaging them. The video further highlights the importance of accurate exposure settings to retain details, especially avoiding clipped highlights in challenging lighting conditions. Understanding these nuances helps you avoid common pitfalls when scaling up your photography.
Cooper also explores the raw processing techniques that contribute significantly to the quality of such substantial prints. He shares insights into using Adobe Camera Raw cautiously, emphasizing the avoidance of excessive highlight recovery due to potential halo effects. The conversation about using DxO PureRAW for preprocessing to manage shadow details and noise reduction adds valuable perspective, especially if you're struggling with image quality in large-format prints. Additionally, Cooper explains the advantages of using software like Gigapixel AI, which enhances resolution effectively for printing at higher pixel densities. This practical advice about software choices and image preparation techniques is directly applicable if you're looking to maintain sharpness and detail integrity when printing at scale.
Expanding on this, Cooper provides a compelling example of converting a large color print into black and white using Nik Silver Efex software. The technique he discusses—going back to the original raw file rather than converting an edited color image—offers significant control over tone and contrast. This method ensures you retain the intricate details necessary for impressive monochrome results. Cooper’s tips about paper selection also add another layer of valuable expertise. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Cooper.
"What It Takes to Make Truly Huge Prints".... a really huge printer.
I'm not sure why his emphasis on technical image qualities is any different between a small print and a really large print. I certainly don't approach making my photograph with the intention of a large print in mind. Highlight and shadow detail are important, no matter the print size. Of course chromatic aberration, or color fringing, and halos become more noticeable at larger sizes, but it's generally easily fixed in raw editing of the original, no matter the print size.
A few additional thoughts:
Really large prints of the size he's talking about are often made for wall murals on some sort of wallpaper vinyl or canvas, not fine art paper. The Epson printer he's using in this video is a pigment printer... great for fine art prints, but prints that large don't generally fall in the category of fine art. Wall murals or large canvases are typically printed on latex or eco-solvent printers where the number of ink cartridges is less, but the durability and fade resistance of the ink is greater. And for those jobs, print resolution is almost always lower than when printed on a fine art printer, in which case, a 36-45 megapixel original upscaled in Topaz Gigapixel AI to the size of the print at 150 PPI will work just fine.
I've sold numerous floor to ceiling wall murals on vinyl, but I've only had one customer since I can remember buy a fine-art print at the size larger than my 44" printer. That was a 60" x 90" and when they got the cost estimate from the picture framer for the acrylic, they nearly fainted.
Oh… one more thing. He’d like to sell you that big print, but told you in the beginning that the Epson print head hadn’t been cleaned, and left some flaws in the print. A print made at an Epson demo center no less. Good grief. If ruined prints from clogged print heads drive you nuts, buy a Canon printer. Their wide-format pigment printers (mine is the 4100, since replaced by the 4600) incorporate an ink system when if one nozzle is clogged, a backup automatically takes its place, all on the fly. In the slightly less than a year that I’ve owned this printer I have not had a single ruined print because of a clogged print head.
I get what you mean about technical image qualities between small and big, and your saying generally it shouldn't matter. What I find is that when I take a shot to my larger TV screen, all of sudden I might see a technical issue I may have missed even on my 24' smaller monitor. Sometimes you probably need to zoom into every section of the photo. On the other hand: If one is just posting to the socials, or fstoppers where your photo is being softened anyway, and a HD version is not being printed large or seen large anywhere, one does not need to scrutinize it so much. I think the world photographers generally live in, is the latter, and less so the former. Prints are a luxury...
No such thing as a typical photographer. We all have different expectations, and customer requirements if selling our images. Of course posting to social media or anything electronic lowers the bar. But once you get into selling prints, the requests for sizes and printing substrates are all over the place. Unless you create a website with just a couple size and paper options, or use a print-on-demand provider which essentially takes care of all that, people inevitably want to purchase larger prints.
For my commercial art buyers and interior designers, the sweet spot is typically about 24*36, but every so often, they want something really large. If my picture is not sufficient quality and resolution to print well to at least 40*60, I don't post it on my website. Virtually all old photos pre Nikon D800 are excluded. For wall murals, we always have a discussion about their expectations because nobody except other photographers examine them up close.
Speaking of viewing distance, I'm not sure how you can edit photos on a large TV screen. I would think it should be the other way around where you would do the detail work on a 24" 4K, or 27" 5K monitor. PPI is more important for what I see on the monitor than overall size.
Printing large prints is not difficult. I print my works ranging from 80x120 cm (32x48 inches) to 180x120 cm (70x48 inches). The issue is not technical, although the camera takes on special significance. What comes to the forefront are entirely different questions:
How does scale work? How does the perception of the piece change, and how should one shoot to ensure the enlargement justifies the effort put into it?
How does the perception of colors, contrast, and saturation shift with the increase in photo size?
How should the work be presented to enhance the impression? Mounting, framing, printing full-size drafts—everything matters.
And finally, how to package the work so it reaches the buyer safely. Perhaps, that’s the most important part. :-)
The main issue with trying to do large prints, are that there are no cameras available that can offer enough resolution to hold up to such a large print size. It effectively needs a stitched image to get at least get a few gigapixels.
With that in mind, a big print for a GFX100s that would still look reasonably sharp, would probably be more in the 20x15 inch range though that would still be pushing things.
This question is a bit more complex. In my experience, the 60MP sensor of the Leica SL3 is sufficient to create a detailed piece sized 70×47in (180×120 cm) at 300dpi without any perceptual flaws. But in most cases, that level of resolution is excessive, since no one views works of that size from a distance of just 20 inches (50 cm). And the larger the piece, the farther the viewer tends to stand. That’s why for very large-format prints used in exhibitions, 100dpi may be perfectly adequate.
Theoretically, a 24MP image is sufficient to produce a 60×40in (150×100 cm) print at 100dpi—adequate for an undetailed photograph intended to be viewed from a distance of 5 to 6.5 feet (1.5 to 2 meters). However, the subject, the style, and the quality of micro-detailing required in the print is crucial.
Here is me and my 70x47/300dpi draft )
The viewing distance, subject of the photo, printing substrate, and customer expectations all impact how large I feel like I can print one of my images. Impressionist images like yours here could probably go as large as anyone could ask for, and upscaling software will fill in the pixels just fine.
The picture I've attached has a lot of details including small houses and cars. It is a mural roughly nine feet tall, and it came out really well because the original was tack sharp and it was printed on a textured vinyl. Sort of like canvas, it hides the sharp detail that a glossy or luster paper would reveal. My point is that there's never an answer for size which applies to all circumstances.
The Fuji GFX100s captures a resolution of 11648 x 8736 (102 megapixels). If you print that image at 300PPI, you'll get a print size of 38" x 29" so I'm not sure where you get such a small print of 20" x 15" as "pushing things." You could take a 20 megapixel camera and make a perfectly sharp 20 x 15 inch print.