Enlarging Photos From Digital Camera Without Losing Quality?

by fs999

I have gotten so many different answers about questions I have about photography, I question, if it’s only an personal opinion, or an answer from someone who has true knowledge. I have a Nikon 5000 Digital Camera,……lots of it’s own personal quirks, although it’s more of I need to r-e-a-l-l-y need to know it’s performance abilities. I used to use a Sony Cyber Shot 10.1, which was very clear that I could not go any larger than an 8X10, and not lose quality and detail. Nikon D5000 only hints, is not completely clear just how large I can go. Is it the MG’s, is it the resolution,…..what can I do to keep my photos top notch, clear, concise, and maintain detail to the max.
I have seen a commercial for some product (whatever it was), the guy in the commercial was taking photos, and later in the commercial he was having a showing, but his photos were poster size. Couldn’t tell what the brand of the camera was,…..rectangular shaped camera, viewfinder was at the top of the camera. The point is what do I need to do, to go large with my photos, maintain clarity, tightness of details, and of course beautify color saturation. PLEASE,…..any help on this is appreciated.

Answer by fhotoace
1) Always, ALWAYS shoot at your cameras highest resolution and larges size. On your camera that would be Large, Fine.
2) Make sure that the camera does not cause blur because you tried to hand hold the camera during a relatively long exposure (use 1/250 th second or faster or better use a tripod when shooting for poster size prints)
3) IF you are shooting for making posters, shoot in RAW + JPEG. The RAW files can be processed to make very high quality TIFF files
4) If you are still having some problems with resolution at those high enlargements, onOne makes a product called Genuine Fractals that will allow you to up sample to perhaps as much as 500% with little pixelation

NOTE:

* Colour saturation has to do with getting the exposure right.
* The camera you saw was probably a $ 10,000 plus medium format camera. Nikon makes a D3x that can out perform all but one medium format sensor..

LINK:

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/en/Camera-Sensor/Sensor-rankings

NOTE:

A 16 mp RAW file from your D5000 can be processed into a TIFF file that is about 29 mb. That is plenty of information to make large prints

Answer by ✰VanGorkum◈Photography✰
-SLR sensors are MUCH better for enlarging photos without loosing quality
-Point & shoot – not so much. Their sensors are so small, its nearly impossible

the D5000 is a 12MP camera, which means you can print up to huge 24×36 and still have good quality. Some may argue this. Why? Well here’s how I see it. If its 24×36 poster, your not gonna be 6 inches from it, so why does it matter? Here’s a good article about that: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

to keep the quality the best , shoot in RAW or JPG Fine.

The clarity actually has a lot more to do with the lens choice, not the camera sensor. Getting cheap, plastic lens will make your D5000 seem like an over-sized point & shoot.

Answer by Mr. Smartypants
It always bothers me to see someone show a poster-sized print on TV and tell you this camera’s pictures can be blown up this big. On TV you can’t tell how good it is if you were looking closely at it. ANY camera, you take a picture, blow it up to 2×3 feet, and show the whole thing in a TV frame, it’s going to look pretty good. It’s like looking at a poster-sized print from 30 feet away. 8^)

There are many things that affect how big you can enlarge a digital picture. Almost every camera today has 10-12 megapixels, which is a LOT, but the lens is not always that good, plus as you get bigger you see ‘noise’ better, depth of focus becomes an issue, etc.

When I took college classes in photography, back in the film days, we often did experiments, taking the same picture many times with different f-stops and shutter speeds, different development times, and changing other variables to see how they affected things like focus, brightness and contrast, sharpness, graininess, etc. etc. The nice thing about digital cameras is that you can take just as many pictures as you want, they are virtually free until you go to print them. So you can do experiments like this quicker and cheaper. You can take the same picture several times with bracketing, different shutter speeds and f-stops, then blow them up on your computer to look at detail and see how sharp it is. With a dSLR you’ll find that shutter speeds above 100 give you more sharpness (because the mirror flipping up tends to shake the camera a little). Some lenses are sharper at some f-stops than others. If you play around with these things you will learn from experience what makes a sharper picture. The other nice thing about this is that every picture contains its shutter speed and f-stop in the ‘metadata’ and a good photo viewing program can show you that.

With 12 megapixels and a good Nikon lens, you should be able to blow up to 11×14 with no problems. But rather than use up a lot of expensive paper and printer ink, you can blow up a small part of a pic on your screen and look at it that way.

You should also have a photo editing program–Photoshop is the best but it’s kind of expensive. Photo editing programs usually have ‘filters’ that can sharpen up a photo. They don’t actually give it any more detail, but they make it appear sharper through some tricks in processing. Also just about any picture you take will benefit from adjustment of brightness, contrast and ‘levels’.

Answer by GadgetGeek
Let me tell you a little about digital camera resolution. The smallest element of a digital image is called a pixel. If you have one million pixels together it’s called a “megapixel”. The more pixels per square inch you have in your photo, the higher the resolution of that image.
I found a chart to determine how many MP (megapixel) you need for that poster. (See sources)
Keep in mind, for larger prints, you need a larger resolution. (measured in megapixels)
Print a photo in too small of a resolution and you get that “blocky”, pixilated look.
See the HP chart in my sources to determine how many megapixels you need (how high of a resolution you need) to print a poster without significant “jaggies” or “pixelation” (both mean blocky, jagged edges where there should be smooth curves). I will also note that if you are planning to do enlargements then you will have to make sure not to get blurry pics. A blurry photo, even if it is taken with a good resolution, will look WORSE the more you enlarge it. I recommend using a tripod, having shake reduction on your camera AND make sure you get plenty of light. On a sunny day with a tripod you will have the ability to set your shutter speed faster and get really great crisp photos. Even indoors, make sure you’re using enough light to capture your subject without blurring. Use “natural light” bulbs when possible. Many flashes give false colors that look cold and blue.
One last idea. If you find that you’re still having trouble getting your images ready for printing, you might try re-sampling your digital file. This means having a program actually ADD pixels to an existing photo, in order to give it more detail. I can recommend some programs that will do this, but they aren’t free. Try: Qimage Pro, Digital Dozen Photo Cleaner, LizardTech’s Genuine Fractals, BenVista PhotoZoom Pro or PhotoShop. For free programs that will do re-sampling (though not as good) try Irfanview, Gimp or Photo! Editor. I have links to them in my sources.
Whatever you do, experiment with it and have FUN !!! Cheers.

Answer by Polyhistor
If Nikons are so great why are there other camera manufacturers. Why don’t them all just quit and go to making Gameboys.

Add your own answer in the comments!

Miam Miam II


Image by fs999
Pentax DA 10-17mm f:3.5-4.5

Cameras we’re looking at:

1) Canon Powershot SD IS
Price: $ 360
Battery Life: 550 shots
Megapixels: 5
Next-shot delay: 2 sec
Optical Zoom: 12x

2) Kodax EasyShare p880
Price: $ 490
Battery Life: 290 shots
Megapixels: 8
Next-shot delay: 2 sec
Optical zoom: 5.8x
Cool feature: wide angle capability, in-camera red-eye romval, and can save images in jpeg

3) Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT
Price $ 800
Battery life: Excellent
Megapixels: 8
Next-shot delay: 1/3 second
Why it’s worth getting: SLR with an LCD screen, ability to change lenses, manual controls

Any ideas?

These are the top 3 we chose from Consumer Reports, but we wanted some honest opinions. This is a camera that would have to last us at least 5-10 years (and hopefully more), so we’re prepared to dish out the dough for the RIGHT camera.

Answer by american native
I have heard great things about Canon. but please do not buy Sony I had to return it twice.

Answer by I use Google for your answers.
Get any Konica Minolta

Answer by Moose in a Tree
I just got an Olympus FE 230. That’ good if you’re looking for a slim, sleek point and shoot type of camera that you can bring everywhere. It costs $ 200.

But if you’re looking for a higher end type camera, I would maybe try a Nikon camera, that is an excellent brand and I have taken amazing pictures with that brand of camera.

Answer by Mike M
Theses are all good quality cameras.My daughter is a photography graduate and uses the Canon Rebel to do professional weddings.

Answer by ehhh….
i onw the Canon Powershot SD900 and i really really like it. It is 10mp and i like how great it is to use. it has many settings but are easy to understand…if i were u..i would look into the Canon Powershot SD900…it cost me like 400 dollars

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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