gdanmitchell Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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If you end up at 300 ppi resolution, you should get a sharp photograph at the smaller size. There is no such thing as too much resolution in the file resulting in a softer image. Possible explanations:
1. As mentioned above, in order to get to the different aspect ratios, one of the images was reinterpolated. (Frankly, if that resulted in a softer file, that's not the fault of your file or of interpolation, but of the process used for interpolation.)
2. It is actually harder to accurately reproduce the very finest details on the smaller print at a given resolution, as they can approach the ppi resolution. If you looked very closely you might see the effect of this, but you shouldn't notice it without extremely close inspection.
3. There is something in the printer's process that is causing an issue. I'm grasping at straws here, but if their printer is (not likely!) set to put too much ink on the paper, or the paper is one that allows more of it, dot gain (or ink spread) could mute details.
The point that details are lost when you interpolate is correct, but... the amount of detail lost should be negligible, and since your print resolution is so high that detail would be at scales smaller than what you would see. That said, there is one philosophy of printing (that I've used from time to time) that suggests not interpolating when making a smaller print, since higher resolutions are actually more important with smaller prints rather than larger ones given how we view them.
Dan
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