I’ve been asked a few times over the past few weeks about how to make images really big. Luckily Photoshop CC had a feature enhancement a while ago now which is perfect for this job.
Let us take this example, below is a picture that i shot at the White Rann of Kutch in Gujarat.
One request this week from a UK based Photographer was to upsize to 600cm on the long edge. Let’s have a look and see how this is possible in Photoshop CC.
The Image upsize feature is available under the Image / Image Size menu option (marked in Red below). Once the dialog is open, there is an option to choose Bicubic Smoother or Sharper. These can be used depending on if the image was being made smaller or larger. The Automatic option could however, be used and it would select the correct option for you.
The new feature that makes such a great job of upsampling is the ‘Preserver Details’ option. This option has been designed to do a much better job at preserving the edge details of an image, that the other options.
To upsample this image to 600cm using this feature, it’s as simple as choosing Centimeters and setting this value to 600cm. Photoshop CC, will then run the process, and the result will be the correct size with amazing detail still preserved.
The draw back, however, can be the resulting file size. Below, the dialog is reporting an output file size over over 26GB. This will be based on the resolution specified in the image size dialog box. To reduce the final output side, the resolution can be decreased, and the resulting file size will be decreased. You should tune this to be what your system can manage (as it is RAM and disk space dependent).
Once OK is pressed, Photoshop CC will work it’s magic and upsize the image.
You can see below, the file is now showing a zoom level of 3%, as the image size is quite large.
If I zoom in to 50%, you will see the amount detail in the face of the camels owner.
You can see in a comparison image of the original file, I need to zoom into 500%, to get the same results.
For comparisions and where this can go. I have succesfully upsized a 16mp file to be 72 inches on the long edge (Fuji x-PRO 1), as well as a 50mp file from the new Canon 5DSR to 65feet on the long edge.
Having printed these two outputs, i’m pretty sure that a 30cm minimum viewing distance is acheivable once the upsample has be done.
Of course, going too large wil increase the file size dramatically. This file in the exercise went to 12GB, the 65feet upscale went to 65GB and would take over 200 sheets of A2 to fully print it.
If you are looking to upsize an image, it’s definatly worth giving Photoshop CC a run for a it’s money, as the results are quite spectacular.