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Question about print resolution

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turnstyle

Active Member
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Jan 4, 2011
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229
Hi all,

My printer spec reads: "Maximum Print Resolution: 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi"

In Lightroom's Print module, down under Print Job, resolution was set to 240ppi.

So would that mean LR is actually throttling the print detail?

I tried raising the LR Print Job resolution, and the highest number it would accept was 1440.

Is this the right way to set this up?

Thanks kindly!
 
Note the difference here is Dpi and Ppi. Notice that your printer prints more dpi in one direction that the other. The file sent sends pixels of equal height and width. Furthermore, you printer does not use the resolution setting that LR writes to the EXIF header. In truth few programs use this and fewer printers depend upon this value for setting the output size of the print. Assume for a minute that you have an image that is 6000px X 4000px. If you want to print that at 12"X 8" the print density in pixels is going to be 500 ppi. If you want to print the same image at 24"X16" the PPI would be 250. You will tell the printer the size in inches that you want the print to be. It will determine how many pixels per inch to apply to the output dpi. The printer will translate the pixels into dots per inch. The translation will be different for horizontal and vertical dimensions ON the paper. More likely the printer will adjust the size of the dots to match the pixels. Everything is fine until you get down to one dot per pixel When you get more than one dot per pixel, you begin to lose resolution and detail. You can produce an acceptable bring down to ~180ppi. below that and the quality of the print suffers.
 
Hi all,

My printer spec reads: "Maximum Print Resolution: 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi"

In Lightroom's Print module, down under Print Job, resolution was set to 240ppi.

So would that mean LR is actually throttling the print detail?

I tried raising the LR Print Job resolution, and the highest number it would accept was 1440.

Is this the right way to set this up?

Thanks kindly!

Although your printer can print to the resolution specified, a photo image usually will not benefit from a print resolution much higher than 300 dpi. On my Epson 2880 I set my print resolution to 360 dpi. Going beyond that typically only wastes time and ink. You might try some sample prints at different resolutions to see if this is true or not with your printer/paper combination.
 
There is another factor not yet mentioned. When a printer reports itself to the operating system it designates its desired input resolution: for Epson this is 360ppi, and for Canon 300ppi. I am quoting Jeff Schewe here, which is good enough for me. Note that ppi is NOT a misprint, we are talking image resolution as the input to the printer. It is best to use this setting in the Print module. Otherwise the operating system will do its own interpolation. There seems some dispute over how important this is in the real world, but as I understand it there can be no benefit in setting a higher resolution.

Dave
 
Now you live received answers on two different forums, and they are different. I have tried setting the resolution and leaving the resolution unchecked and blank, and have not been able to see any difference. You probably will need to experiment for yourself to decide what really works best in your situation.
 
I have a Canon multifunction printer MG7150. One thing I have noticed is that it seems best at 300dpi in LR.
I made some 6x4 prints with different settings and with print sharpening set to high there is a noticeable difference in sharpness between 300 and 600 dpi setting with the 300 dpi one definitely sharper.
I can only think that the OS or driver downrezes the 600 one with LR sharpness down to 300 and loses the sharpness in the process.
I tried it several times because I couldn't believe it the first time!
 
There is another factor not yet mentioned. When a printer reports itself to the operating system it designates its desired input resolution: for Epson this is 360ppi, and for Canon 300ppi. I am quoting Jeff Schewe here, which is good enough for me. Note that ppi is NOT a misprint, we are talking image resolution as the input to the printer. It is best to use this setting in the Print module. Otherwise the operating system will do its own interpolation. There seems some dispute over how important this is in the real world, but as I understand it there can be no benefit in setting a higher resolution.

Dave
Jeff Schewe's advice is good enough for me too, but I did extensive testing of his recommendations anyway and found them to be true. They are most observable at severe printing enlargements and closeup print viewing.

The full Jeff Schewe LR print recommendation is: For images below 360 ppi (Epson) - check off the LR Print Resolution box and choose 360 ppi to send to the printer. For images above 360 ppi but below 720 ppi, choose 720 ppi to send to the printer. These values of 360 and 720 are for Epson printers; HP and Canon printers use 300 ppi and 600 ppi.

In LR you can read the ppi of the image in the upper left corner when you uncheck the Print Resolution box. Just remember to check it off when you do select the ppi to send to the printer.

Here's something additional: If you are printing on an Epson and you are using a LR setting of 720 ppi, then in the printer dialog check the box for Finest Details. If you don't check that box, the printer will revert back to 360 ppi automatically.
 
On my Canon, checking the box for finest detail didn't make the 600 dpi one any sharper, so I'm sticking to 300 dpi for everything. It may be different however for the 'Pro' series dedicated photo printers. It might be that the consumer multifunction printers are limited to 300 dpi in the drivers. Not sure.
As always it's best to suck it and see. See what looks best for you.
 
A pixel in an image file does not correspond in a 1:1 fashion with droplets laid down on paper by a printer.
Lets think about this for a second - a printer has about a dozen ink cartridges at most.
Printers can print millions of colours that are potentially present in the image file to be printed.
Each pixel that is sent to the printer is represented in a print by many droplets laid down by the printer.
Exactly how this works across different printers are closely protected proprietary secrets although certain known principles of dithering and colour science are known.

For the purposes of how to prepare images for printing in Lightroom it is important to use the native resolution of the print pipeline of that printer.
For Epson printers this is 360ppi, Canon uses 300ppi.
So, how this works is that once a print size is selected then the potential resolution of that print will be known.
Cletus has mentioned how changing the print size alters the resolution for any particular image file.
For best results if the resolution of a potential print is less than the native resolution of the print pipeline (360ppi in the case of Epson printers and 300ppi in the case of Canon printers) then uprez to 360ppi or 300ppi as the case may be.
If the intrinsic resolution is greater than the native resolution of the print pipeline then tests have shown that doubling resolution to 720ppi (Epson) and 600ppi (Canon) gives the best results.

The key is to use the resolution that is native to the printer in question.
This because if you do not uprez in Lightroom using the uprezzing algorithms in Lightroom then the printer itself will do so using far inferior algorithms.

Apart from the fact that I can confirm, using my Epson Pro 7900, that this actually works and can be discerned when comparing prints other individuals such as Jeff Schewe and Mark Segal who are acknowledged world experts in the realm of fine-art printing firmly endorse this approach.
In fact, as far as I am aware, it was Jeff Schewe who first did the research and brought this to the attention of the world.

If you look further, on different forums and websites, there are as many opinions on this as there will be at a lawyers convention.
Carefully scrutinise who is making what claims.
Just today I read a post on another forum of an individual conceding to Jeff Schewe that at a pixel-peeping level he may have a point but that the issue is inconsequential as a real world issue.
No less a person than Mark Segal immediately supported Jeff's assertions.
Obviously, at a pixel level it is more apparent, but, comparing otherwise good prints side-by-side one uprezzed in Lightroom and the other uprezzed by the printer differences in print quality can be discerned.

My suggestion, especially if you are making big prints, is to do the yards and experiment yourself.

Tony Jay
 
Hi all, thanks for this conversation.

I had actually now thought it was best to leave resolution unchecked -- is that not correct?

robsolo wrote: "In LR you can read the ppi of the image in the upper left corner when you uncheck the Print Resolution box." -- I don't seem to see that -- I uncheck resolution, and I should see ppi somewhere in LR?

I am using an Epson, but nowhere have I noticed an option for "Finest Details" -- where would I look for that?

Thanks again, what voodoo this is! :)
 
Hi all, thanks for this conversation.

I had actually now thought it was best to leave resolution unchecked -- is that not correct?..
Yes that is correct. If you describe cell size in inches or CM, LR will fill the cell with your image and figure out automatically what translation it needs to do to print the image to that size.
Remember my earlier statement:
"Furthermore, you printer does not use the resolution setting that LR writes to the EXIF header. In truth few programs use this and fewer printers depend upon this value for setting the output size of the print."
 
Hi all, thanks for this conversation.

I had actually now thought it was best to leave resolution unchecked -- is that not correct?

robsolo wrote: "In LR you can read the ppi of the image in the upper left corner when you uncheck the Print Resolution box." -- I don't seem to see that -- I uncheck resolution, and I should see ppi somewhere in LR?

I am using an Epson, but nowhere have I noticed an option for "Finest Details" -- where would I look for that?

Thanks again, what voodoo this is! :)

I'm curious as to why you can't see the image ppi info in the upper left corner (of the image) when you uncheck the Print Resolution box. I always see this info on my editing computer but recently noticed that it was not available in LR installed on my laptop. However, when I used my laptop (new Dell), I was away from my home network and had no access to a printer. I will check today to see if LR on my laptop still behaves this way when hooked up to printer access through my network.

Does someone on this forum know why this is occurring?
soloryb
 
Printer Preferences > Print Quality drop-down menu > Quality Options. In the Quality Options dialog you should see a check-off box for Finest Detail. That's the way my Epson 3880 looks.
soloryb
 
I'm curious as to why you can't see the image ppi info in the upper left corner (of the image) when you uncheck the Print Resolution box. I always see this info on my editing computer but recently noticed that it was not available in LR installed on my laptop. However, when I used my laptop (new Dell), I was away from my home network and had no access to a printer. I will check today to see if LR on my laptop still behaves this way when hooked up to printer access through my network.

Does someone on this forum know why this is occurring?
soloryb

fwiw, I am working on a laptop -- just in case it might somehow be specific to laptops (or perhaps screen size)...
 
Printer Preferences > Print Quality drop-down menu > Quality Options. In the Quality Options dialog you should see a check-off box for Finest Detail. That's the way my Epson 3880 looks.
soloryb

When I pull up Print Setting, and then select the "Media & Quality" section -- and I just see a Quality slider that goes from Draft to Normal to Best -- perhaps there is no "Finest Detail" option for this printer.
 
When I pull up Print Setting, and then select the "Media & Quality" section -- and I just see a Quality slider that goes from Draft to Normal to Best -- perhaps there is no "Finest Detail" option for this printer.

Which Epson?
Also, I checked my laptop and I think the reason it wasn't showing that image info (upper left) was that I didn't have the Printer Module > Guides > Dimensions box checked off. I'm not sure whether - even with the Dimensions box checked - I would see the upper left image info if there were no printers available.

robosolo
 
It's an Epson XP-620 -- I can't seem to find anything saying it should have Finest Detail -- do you think I should have that somewhere?

And yes, (thanks), the resolution display needed to be checked in the Guides section, so thanks for that.
 
Well, surprising results!

I printed a hi-res source to 4x6:

1) with resolution unchecked

2) with resolution set to 360

3) with resolution set to 720

It turned out (at least for me) -- 360 is clearly sharper in the details.

So now I'm especially curious if there's some way to enable 720.

But even 360 is a worthwhile improvement over unchecked (at least for me).
 
What did I say! I was astonished by the result at 300 compared with 600 that I repeated it several times to be sure! I can only think that the driver only works at 300 on the Canon on the multifunction devices. Maybe the Pro ones work at 600/720 with 'finest detail' checked. For me 600 looks worse despite finest detail being checked.
 
It's lame if Canon/Epson are hobbling the performance of multi-function printers -- they're marketed as photo printers.

In any case, I'm already noticeably better off at 360 -- and I'm curious to try 720 if there's some way to turn on "Finest Detail"
 
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