Photo Laboratory question

Hi All,

When I convert from Raw to jpeg or tiff in Photo Laboratory the converted file is only 72dpi. I've tried the different file settings and it's the image size and not the dpi that increases. I thought once you have a low dpi you cannot recover quality by just changing the dpi is PS to say 300dpi, what am I doing wrong?

It's not what you're doing wrong... it's what you're thinking

The DPI setting really shows nothing... except to help with some printing operations later on.
For example, a 6Mp image will output at 3008x2008 pixels. At 72dpi that will print at 41"x28". At 300dpi it will print at 10"x6.7"

A few (very few) printing operations require you to set this value. For example, when importing into the typesetting package InDesign the DPI setting is used to work out the size of the default image box on the page - that's where a setting of 75dpi isn't very helpful as you get an enormous box on the page .

However, 99.9% of home use will completely and utterly ignore the DPI setting It's best to think in terms of pixels rather than dpi for most work.

HTH!
Matt

Thanks for the reply Matt, so, if a printer required 300dpi what would be the optimum process for achieving this?

What printer exactly did you have in mind...?
(I meant printer in the sense of a company, rather than a piece of hardware)
Matt

Hi Matt,

Probably Photobox and Rascal Print Ltd. With Rascal print I want to produce a print about 16"*24" in their new Acrylic medium for hanging in my bathroom.

Well, Rascal specify a "minimum of 360dpi" so you'll need an image that's at least 8640 x 5760 pixels.

You are better off upsizing in the RAW package (if you are able to). So a 250% linear increase should do the job (a BIG file of 63 million pixels).

If you can't do it in the RAW converter, then you can do in Photoshop. If your version of PS has "Bicubic Smoother" (definitely in PS-CS and PS-CS2) then use that and then apply some unsharp mask sharpening after.

BUT - in any case, you'll need a bit of patience and a lot of RAM 'cause it'll get hungry working on that much data. And your file size will almost certainly be near 10Mb in that case!

There's also www.photoartistry.co.uk that I've had a superb 36x24" canvas from. Sure they do acrylic too.

Matt

Cheers Matt,

Thanks for the advice!!