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 p.1 #3 · How to get the sharpest prints? | |
The simple answer is make some prints both ways and let your eyes tell you which is best. Whenever an image is resized up or down there will be some loss of original detail, but the human eye is easily fooled and unsharp masking can be used in varying degrees to compensate for the loss.
The more important perceptual variables are print size and viewing distance. Beyond reading distance the eye loses the ability to discern fine detail and our perception of sharpness begins to be based more and more on contrast. What USM does is enhance contrast along tonal boundaries, which perceptually creates the illusion of more sharpness. Don't lose sight of the fact the entire photographic process is based on creating the illusion of 3D with contrast patterns. On a pixel peeping level the sharpened image will not look as good, but perceptually it will look more natural.
The advantage of resizing based on printer native resolution (i.e. printhead density per inch) is that you control the resizing, not the printer driver, eliminating some uncontrollable variables. Also you are able to apply USM after resizing. For example when getting prints made at Costco I follow the recommendation in the tutorial at http://www.drycreekphoto.com which is the company which creates the profiles for the Costco printers and I apply USM as the last step before saving..
For very large prints the file sizes can get unmanageable if the image is resized in Photoshop to printer resolution and at some point its better to send the native camera file to the print (cropped perhaps but not resampled) and let the printer manage the resampling. USM will still be need in most cases, but with the printer handling the resampling you would need to apply it to the camera file.
There are just too many variables, not the least of which are your quality standards, to suggest one over the other definitively which is way I suggest taking a few of your favorite images and trying it both ways at various sizes with various amounts of USM.
The weakest link in the chain is human perception. it can spot minor difference in side-by-side comparison, but absent a baseline for comparison will adapt to whatever you are viewing. You'll learn more about the process by printing one photo 20 different ways and comparing side-by-side than basing assumptions on 20 different images.
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