350dpi Book Printing from a D200

Hi all,

I am starting to shoot for a book (both UW and above) and the design company says that the high quality book printing needs to be at 350dpi. Any less would result in unsatisfactory print quality, so they say. That limits full res images from my D200 to approx 7.5 x 11 inches. That's scary since i'd like to do full page & double page spreads etc. And many of my above water action shots (birds etc.) must be cropped even smaller. This also suprises me as in other threads, people say that make huge prints 3-4 meters across from these cameras.

I shoot all raw now, but have some older jpegs. Both files are 10mp, but obviously jpegs sacrifice quality. Is there a way to quantify this quality loss since both are theoretically the same resolution?

Does anyone have any experience with printing a high quality photo book from a D200 or close to 10mp digital slr? Can anyone support or refute this 350dpi requirement? I forget the exact name of the printing process though.

I appreciate any input. Cheers,

Chris

Well, skimming through "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Studio Techniques by Ben Willmore"

(p.134)

Offset and laser printer use LPI (lines per inch) instead of DPI (dots per inch)

LPI Use

133 Magazines and brochures

150 high-end mags and high-quality brochures

175 annual reports and high-end brochures

To calculate image DPI needed for printing associated LPI

multiply by 1.5 for lots of detail

_or_

multiply by 2 for image to look smoother

So, 350DPI is in the ball park.

If your images aren't big enough, you can use strair-step intepolation to up the resolution of your images. (there are many tools that do this.)

Color space matching and compensating for printing color changes could be more of a problem than image resolution. (talk to someone who knows the printing process and can explain what you need in plain english)

Take Care,

ChrisS

To calculate image DPI needed for printing associated LPI

multiply by 1.5 for lots of detail

_or_

multiply by 2 for image to look smoother

 

So, 350DPI is in the ball park.

If your images aren't big enough, you can use strair-step intepolation to up the resolution of your images. (there are many tools that do this.)

Thanks for the info Chris. It is colour offset printing, i remember now. So, for 175lpi I would need 265dpi for lots of detail and 350dpi for it to look smoother?? Wouldn't the higher dpi result in more detail?? Or does that mean it renders the detail more smoothly?

Also, can anyone recommend a good interpolation program to increase the resolution? What kind of realistic size difference can these programs give (at 300-350dpi terms)?

Thanks for the help, trying to get my head around this level of printing so I can think realistically about what sizes I can print. I would love any input from someone who's done a high end photo book from a modern dslr. Cheers,

Chris

High quality means different things to different people... I'm assuming top end coffeee table book.

If your printer wants 350ppi, that's what he wants and, as mentioned earlier by uw_nikon, your printer is therefore probably printing through a 175 lpi screen or equivelant to acheive a certain print quality standard, which is a good start.

An important aspect of the print size/acceptable quality conundrum is viewing distance. Peope will be studying your book up close, not from across the room. A very good d200 file can be res-ed up carefully to double page spread, but remember they can only print what you give them. I'd evaluate the jpegs (and any of the crops for that matter) very carefully before geting carried away making them too big. If you can't do a couple of pages and have them proofed, which i'd recommend, one way to make a decision about how an image might print is to make it to-size at 300ppi, then view it on screen at about 50%. not 33% or 66%, but 50%.

Remember too that images with lots of large detail and reasonable magnification (eg long lens critters out of water, macro's out of, and under water) will handle enlargement better than will something like an intricate rainforest landscape shot with a wide angle lens.

Some printers offer a service where they will assess all the images you supply and prepare them for press. Others just print what you give 'em. What's happening in your case?

with the previous point in mind, here are a couple of other question....

Q1. Are they using a rosette, stochastic or one of the hybrid screens (like Agfa's Sublima)?

Q2. Are you doing the CMYK seperations/conversions, or will the printer's prepress department do that?

Q3. Will you be doing the output sharpening, or again will the pre-press guys handle that?

(the screen type and print size will determine the amount of sharpening you need).

Art directors want 300 - 350 dpi.

I used to shoot Fuji S2 Pro and have a thousand files. To get the pictures big enough I simply set the interpolation when converting from RAW to make a TIF. I'm sure theoretically you can't 'improve' quality that way, but everyone seems happy.

I now shoot D200 underwater (slightly bigger RAW files) and do the same.

I do as much correction as I can in the RAW converter (sharpening turned off), only using Photoshop to clean up any detritus. (I have taken to calling this process Mustardization!) Printers and art directors are very suspicious of anything subjected to a lot of processing in Photoshop because funny things can happen in Web off-set.

I supply colour corrected RGB TIF files that have had the sharpening turned off all the way through the process. I let the printer set his own parameters for CMYK levels and sharpening.

It may not be right but it works and I regularly see my worked printed Web off-set. I also note that the same files get reproduced significantly differently in our Scandinavian (sheet fed) mags than they do in (Web off-set) Diver mag. in the UK.

Hope that helps.

Can't help you with jpegs. I normally only use them for e-mails but recently ordered some iBooks of holiday snaps which needed to be sent as jpegs. The repro is stupendous!.

one thing i forgot to mention, if this is your first offset job with that printer, never assume anything, always ask and re-ask. Printers in different countries have different ways of doing things, work-flows etc, so don't assume what any of us say is gospel in your market. John has mentioned that he gets different results from the same files depending on the region he is printing in....

and to explain web vs sheet offset, web is usually reserved for long print runs, the press takes in paper in a huge roll at one end and spits out a bound magazine at the other. Great to watch. Sheetfed is usually shorter runs... in a simple sheetfed press, a sheet of paper goes in one end and (usually) comes out printed on one side at the other. the sheets then dry and are turned over and run through a second time to print on the back, and the trim and bind is performed away from the press.

Hi Chris,

Good replies here, Photovan is right on.

Importantly I think we still need to know if your printer will require you to supply CMYK images instead of

RGB. Has anyone mentioned the prefered wide gamut color space of Adobe 1998 RGB?

The quest for quality enlargements with minimal noise once again points to the importance of shooting

at the lowest ISO available.

Best,

Tom Stack

http://www.tomstackphoto.com