Blurb Forums

large format photo resolution

Hope someone can help… I’ve only completed one, smaller format book. Now I’m starting two of the larger, landscape books and have immediately run into a problem.  I’d like to use a number of photographs full-bleed but I get that yellow warning sign. The photos were imported from a Nikon SLR, set on Fine and for Large photos, for one book. The others were from a professional camera, also Nikon. Neither is quite high enough for BookSmart. They just fall short of being the right resolution. Is there anything else I can do? Is there a different way of transferring the photos from photo card to computer? Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Hi Tony,
The Nikon software is Picture Perfect and I thought that there were more options, but I’m having a hard time getting any useful information. I’m only taking them from the card to the computer with this program. The pixels of one photo, for example, that I’d like to use for a full-bleed is 3008×2000, 300dpi. This is probably ok for the 11×8, but wanted to do 13×11. There are a large quantity of photos from my Dad’s camera (who’s semi-professional), but even these don’t seem like they’ll work. Is there another way of importing them? Or do you think it’s more about the way they were originally shot? Thanks, Sue

I do have Photoshop (CS2), am a graphic designer, so I feel very comfortable with “fiddling” within a program I know. Thanks for the prompt responses. -Sue

Hi Tony,
Hmm. I always thought that once the image is in the program there wasn’t much you could do in terms of enlarging while retaining high quality. I’ll definitely try this. I guess I should do my vacation book and see what happens before I send in my dad’s work. Thanks for the suggestion! -Sue

Good input Jeremy.

I agree that upsizing can ruin a photo. But done with care, and using the right algoritms and software, it is possible to get an acceptable result. Possibly not for a fine-art photobook, but definately OK for a family photo album.

I totally agree that sharpening will not improve an out-of-focus photograph (but see note below) or one with blur but there is still a place for sharpening. I like Bruce Fraser’s approach to sharpening and his discussions as to why you would want to, he summarises it here http://www.creativepro.com/article/out-of-gamut-thoughts-on-a-sharpening-workflow

I’d love to get into a debate with you but (lucky me) I’m off on holiday to the UK’s Northumberland coast, so won’t be back to access the forums for a few weeks. Maybe when I get back?

But to re-enforce your message if you’re not sure what you are doing with upsizing and sharpening don’t practice on a critical book with a critical delivery date. If in doubt try a print of (say) the first 20 pages to test out your approach. Also doing a print (either on your home inkjet or a photolab) is a good way to test if the upsizing has worked, if that looks fine in should be fine in your book, if that looks pixelated it will look that way in the book as well.

........Tony

There is a UK company that does some really interesting products. If you have an out-of-focus photo that retains all the EXIF data including camera and lens data their  software has details of all the main DSLRs and lenses and will build a mathematical model of the photo, matching that to the mathematical model they have of the camera/lens combination they claim to be able to fix (to an extent) that out-of-focus photo. The softeware is called FocusFixer. The company is Fixerlabs (http://www.fixerlabs.com/).

They also have a product (SizeFixer) that creates a mathemeatical model of the photo that can then be upsized then converted back to a digital photo. I have had good results with this when I’ve had to significantly crop wildlife photos where my lens was just not long enough to fil the frame. I use the SizeFixer XL

As Tony said: "The full bleed page for the 13" x 11" book ideally requires a photo of 3788×3263 so your 3008×2000 photo should print just fine. Although Blurb recommend 300dpi BookSmart is fairly forgiving and people say they have had good results at 150dpi."

 If the pictures are the size you say then you should not be getting the yellow warning triangle, as that only appears if the resolution falls below (I believe) 150dpi. So you must be inadvertently resizing your images when you edit them.