Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

I agree about making a poster of it, but it would be a real push to get that size Frank. It's actually almost square at 8bits per channel RGB, but at 300ppi it's only ~5"x5". Might crop a bit of the sky but would take from the perspective, imho. Perhaps a giclee would take up some of the slack and get you up to 2x2' in Gray scale at 32bits/channel, maybe¿ Reminds me of Coney Island or The Pike in Long Beach for some reason..or ants roaming among the giants.

I love most of these for various reasons and would be hard pressed to pick a top 5 let alone top 10, and only 76 saved from these posts that Jon has so graciously shared with us.

Thanks for another great one Jon.

Your right PJs I have the photo saved at 8065 x 8338 or 5.89 MB which would print out at around 40"by 36" @ 200 DPI
My plotter can print up to 1200 DPI and I have 16 gb ram and 36 gb virtual
so size and power is there won't come out at 3 ft by 5 ft but will be able to get 36" by 40"
I once scanned in an 8 by 10 glossy at 5400 DPI setting on my scanner then printed it out approximately 42 inches wide by 52 inches long on my old plotter which was not as good as the one I have now that photo turned out just fine It would have been better if I would have had photo paper instead of just butcher paper but it was OK for what we needed it for.
This plotter I can print to vinyl or even nylon cloth for banners but I haven't tried it yet

[Jon]

What DPI do you need for a decent print photograph?

[Frank S]

around 150 would be about the minimum I would want I've tried printing email pictures without first trying to enhance them they are usually around 75 DPI
A trick I have used several times is to up size in Microsoft office to 30% larger at a time then save then auto correct and repeat several times until the saved size is 400% larger than original then print them off on my smaller printer on photo paper they come out more or less fair there is only so much enlargement that can be done but a good scanner can do wonders to a wallet size photo if you want a 4x6 print No where near what a true photo enlarger can do at the lab though and even those depend on the exposure setting the photo was taken on and the clarity and lighting.
There was studio in Kuwait that printed wrap adds for the sides of the buses they could take a digital photo of a painting about 3500 by 2400 and blow it up to fit the side of the bus which would look like it had been painted on by Rembrandt himself they were that good

[Jon]

My pipe dream is to have these types of photos somehow painted or similarly imaged onto a garage wall.

Like when you go to some museums, and they have lifesize black-and-white photos on the wall. How are they doing that?

[Frank S]

My pipe dream is to have these types of photos somehow painted or similarly imaged onto a garage wall.

Like when you go to some museums, and they have lifesize black-and-white photos on the wall. How are they doing that?

Well you probably couldn't do it this way LOL

But this way could work if you did it is reasonable sized sections at a time
https://www.diynetwork.com/how-to/ma...ansfer-pumpkin

[Frank S]

but this will explain the process a little better
https://www.instructables.com/id/Ima...nsfer-to-Wood/

[PJs]

What DPI do you need for a decent print photograph?

Technically Jon, digital picture files are considered "Print Ready" at 300PPI (Pixels/in). Printers use DPI as it represents Dots/in, as in most inkjets use a droplet (Dot) form of some type. Laserjets are another story as they use a coronal process on a roller and typically considered to be about 600ppi even in color.

Like Frank says you can get a decent-ish print at 200ppi but the eye will notice the aberrations. 300ppi is at the edge of what most people can discern in clarity and has been the standard for a long time. Up-scaling anymore than 10-15% will blow it to smithereens and a waste of ink, imho.

I did a 4/0, 4' x 8' vinyl poster a while back for a client that was "Print Ready" but it was required to be 1200PPI in order to scale it to that size in good resolution to the eye. It had a couple of pictures and a Vector Logo I did for him prior but the pictures had to be scanned a 1200ppi, cleaned up, adjusted, then inserted in order to be good visually at distance. Another thing that helps the printing processes is to Flatten the artwork and usually required for print houses. In this case I had a lot of drop shadows to highlight the logo, and some text as well as some other layer overlay effects...without flattening most printers misinterpret those opacities and colors giving a very bad effect, printed. To give a clue the restoration I did of my GGGPa tintype (~1.75x2.25) I scanned it as a 1600ppi TIFF file, just to get it big enough to print a 300ppi 4x6.

Imho, the only way to get these to a decent quality wall picture would be to save and print them as 300PPI and send the print to a Scan House (lots out there) and let them scan it at say 2400-3600ppi. These scan houses can do the whole process, much like Chip and Joan did on their HGTV series with the split rolling frame Before shots, but on a TV budget they could afford ~$1000per. I'm sure they were shot with a quality DLSR Or DLST and sent out for production. My hit is those were probably 150dpi prints on canvas or vinyl. Also keeping in mind when you scan to these resolutions, all the aberrations are enhanced as well as Interpolated above the original.

I had the good fortune to get to work with a local printing wizard who taught me a lot in the beginning. He help a lot, particularly in developing some of the larger giclee's I've done. Those were done in AI (Adobe Illustrator) but had certain picture elements in some that had to be gotten to at least 300ppi to print...my largest was a 30" x 48" on canvas and I gave him the file at 1200ppi to run through their commercial grade High End large format HP plotter.

Also keep in mind that Jpgs are RGB and most inkjets run a CMYK cartridge setup and the printer takes up the difference which is considerable. Not so much on Sepia or B/W (which I use TIFF format) but it does make a big difference on rendered color perception.

Hope that helps and didn't go completely off the TMI rails.

PJ

And for the next DIY X/Y plotter project...just keep in mind the DPI/PPI still needs to be correct.

[Jon]

Thanks! Didn't know there was that much to it. Got the idea from looking at all of those old Mesta factory photographs. Would love to look at a wall of my garage, and see those old machines as if they were in the distance on the same floor. Although, admittedly, this is perhaps not my single most important project right now.

[PJs]

Thanks! Didn't know there was that much to it. Got the idea from looking at all of those old Mesta factory photographs. Would love to look at a wall of my garage, and see those old machines as if they were in the distance on the same floor. Although, admittedly, this is perhaps not my single most important project right now.

That is a great idea! I was thinking a collage of some type but a perspective from floor level...awesome.

[Jon]

Not sure where I got the idea. I think I saw it first at a museum or airport. Like on a big wall at a passenger terminal, or behind a museum display or something. And you know how there are lifesize sepia or black-and-white photographs with people in them, maybe a timeline or historical data or explanation superimposed on it. I'm sure we've all seen this concept. Those big honkin' Mesta photographs are just dying to be reborn like that.

If that isn't really doable, I will settle for a photograph-topped cappuccino made with a pic of a Heavy Press.