Hasselblad Print Advantage

[Hassilistic]

Hi All,

It has been brought to my attention that I am not exploiting the full advantages of my Hasselblad capabilities when it comes to print.  As I have just recently found out that a colleague of mine always prepares his prints in 600dpi (or 630dpi for epson) instead of the typical 300 or 360dpi which until yesterday I never thought we needed to go any higher.

I am using an H5D-40, I was wondering if anyone had any advise based on sensor size, printer model, native resolution, or a specific cook method that would help us yield better results if possible at all.

Please keep in mind almost all my prints to date have been at size A0 & A1.  I currently am forced to resort to professional printing press, and type of makes vary greatly, most of which no one has ever heard of.  However, once they do there magic I must say I am pleased with the results.  That said, they will not change or alter the file, but work it as received from me.  I want to at least deliver the best possible file I can, and then allow them to do the rest.

Links to some reading material is welcome too, however nothing beats real world testing , hands on experience is always king.

Plus, regarding purchasing your own printer to help produce limited edition Giclee prints, I am leaning towards Epson 9900, Anyone has any better or alternative suggestions, Much appreciate it.

Cheers

[anestesik]

Hi

Is an old post, but I will try to help you if you want.

If you are using Epson pro printers, I think you could get the same quality than a professional lab with Epson plotters, because, I think ( there is no difference in the web specifications ), all them share the same heads.

So, for the resolution, look for the highest resolution or native resolution from the printer, and then, divide by 2 to find your resolution.

Then, for Epson printers, the maximum resolution is 2880, and 1440 for fast prints.

If your files comes in a multiple of this resolution, the printer will fix it better to the head high densiity of dots.

So, choose 2880,1440,720,360, 180, 90.

the intermediate are also nice, like 450, 540, 630.

Use the Epson driver, controling color flow from printer, is very nice opposite to what people think about profile handling. If you dont have an spectrophotometer, try to use the Epson tool. Is amazingly precise and trustly, for both, color and BW

Regards,
Pablo

[Hassilistic]

Thank you Pablo,  That was very helpful.

I am personally interested in the 16bit Epson printers.  as well as the large format, but have yet to decide as I have not yet put a formula together for I want in a printer.

Cheers,

[wes walker]

.....as regards misinformation on Epson printers.........Adobe and Apple have made a mess of Color Management.......Printing through

Preview or Adobe Color Printer Utility can avoid  these problems.......sending odd numbers to printer driver is not an issue....i.e. 197dpi

or 423dpi........actually better to let the printer downsize or upsize to native 360dpi  at the dither stage.......regarding 2880 output.....

one needs to send file at 720dpi for 2880 printing..high speed off...unidirectional on........Epson profiles for professional printers are

excellent..........thanks to Joseph Holmes and Bill Atkinson.........ww

[Hassilistic]

Nearly same time last year, I posed a few questions to which I was aware that several approaches existed, as well as best practices.
Thanks to the suggestions presented by Anestesic and Wes Walker, both methods yielded impressive results.

Taking all that info, I wanted to create a specific formula for Hasselblad backs which can be applied correctly and repeatedly every single time.   Particularly important to me cause I print very large images.

That said, I am fully aware that their are much bigger brains than me here, and I will be honoured if everyone contributes input to make this happen, and we can share findings, and exercise them to perfection.

Now here is what I have been able to Calculate (first in couple of decades) and apply to my reasoning:
- Hasselblad H5D-40 Native Resolution is 4247 PPI
Naturally we can not use that unless we are printing a 1in x 1in image.  Plus PS won't allow you to enter anything higher than 999.

- Phocus Software at Export stage utilises the 300PPI standard
As such this exported file will be effected by the PPI and Print size ratio.  Which will give an image of nearly 24in x 18in, and at 240PPI it will yield a 30in x 24in and so on.

I found I can not change that in Phocus.  As it is a prefixed Standard.

- In PS however, when I bring an image 3FR into CR, I am able to apply a  PPI of choice while maintaining a Certain size dimension.
So I can have a 720PPI and still get a 30in x 24in image size.

- When I brought of them into PS, I noticed the size dimensions were exactly the same however the PPI on the first was 600PPI the second 700PPI and the third 240PPI... at 100% they all zoom in differently.  Which shouldn't be the case as I have constrained the sizes.

What I was aiming to do, firstly establish my cameras Native Resolution, then process at that native resolution, then Print at multiples of that number to get the highest possible results.

If anyone believes I have swayed off on the wrong path, due to misinformation or lack of it, kindly enlighten me as I so desperately seek it.  If it won't matter cause at some point this will all be overridden by the application then do tell.

If you believe I am on to something here, perhaps we can explore further.  It would be a shame all that perfection to go wasted at printing stage.

Technology is changing rapidly, and all OLD FORMULAS no longer apply.  I remember a time when everything was CMYK, and only 4stops of gradation will appear, and then 8 bit, and then 16bit printing by Epson which you can do at home, which everyone believed at the time was a futile attempt.

Only we can push this.

Cheers,

[Miller]

- In PS however, when I bring an image 3FR into CR, I am able to apply a  PPI of choice while maintaining a Certain size dimension.
So I can have a 720PPI and still get a 30in x 24in image size.

- When I brought of them into PS, I noticed the size dimensions were exactly the same however the PPI on the first was 600PPI the second 700PPI and the third 240PPI... at 100% they all zoom in differently.  Which shouldn't be the case as I have constrained the sizes.

The moment you tell Photoshop to apply a certain value of PPI and at the same time maintain certain dimensions, you are effectively uprezzing or downrezzing you file. That is why they all zoom in differently, as you are looking at pixels when you zoom.

[Hassilistic]

Thanks Miller, you helped me make the link; the Zoom effect is in fact in relation to the monitor, as 3 files presented to the monitor in 3 different Pixel orientations, therefore each will be showcased differently. 

Bottom line, the print size of 30in x 22.7in will remain the same for all 3 files, the resolution however will be perceived higher for the highest pixel density picture. 

[Hassilistic]

Okay.. Now i am puzzled. 
I sent 2 more files of same image but this time from Phocus, and had one file with 300PPI and another with 720PPI.  Both opened in PS as TIFFs (my preset choice) with one having 3x the size of the other (as shown in the document properties tap), yet they all zoom in exactly the same way!!!

On another note, those previous 3FR files which I have ingested directly into Camera Raw, outputted FFF files for editing in PS [Which I find very interesting], however, when done, you no longer able to save as FFF, but rather any other recognised image format. 

* So this leads or rather confirms that your originals can only be saved/archived in 3FR if you wish to keep them for future use, if your workflow does not include Phocus.  Mind you, its not too late to still do that either way.

[Hassilistic]

OMG! I am so stoked right now! just finished the Hasselblad Printing Service Survey, Has anyone seen that yet?
My favourite part is when they asked : 

"Would you be interested in an officially certified printing service offered by Hasselblad that completes the imaging chain, i.e. a WYSIWYG, color managed, high resolution, archival quality print option that fully maximises your camera's potential?

Duh! Absolutely! Bring it!

[NickT]

Yes I saw that, interesting idea!