PhotoWorks maximum image size

Hello NG,

I want to render a large banner-sized image in highest possible resolution
for a client.
Now I found out that PhotoWorks limits maximum image size for renderings to
10000 x 7500 pixel. Is there a way to bypass this limitation or is PW 2007
able
to render bigger images? I am still on SW 2005 / PW 2005


Thanx for your help

Jojo

 

To answer your question, no I don't know of any way to bypass the size
limit if you are using a perspective or a perspective camera view. By
the way, it is 10K x 10K in 2007- you can turn off 'fixed aspect
ratio' just to the right of the height value to get the extra pixels
in the Y dimension.
If you are not using perspective, you CAN pan and re-render, then
stitch the resulting images together in an image editing software
package and make as large an image as you have time and patience for.
However, this is not recomended for anything other than orthagonal
product views - isometric or other angles without perspective just
looks weird to an audience.

To address the underlying issue, you might not need to render to as
high a resolution as your post suggests ("highest possible
resolution"). The question to ask is "highest useful resolution".

Do a google search on 'print resolution' and look at web sites from
prefessionals who know what they are talking about (you will be able
to tell them fom the hacks because they talk about things technically,
using terms like line screen or respecting the number of different
colors that need to be laid down to make a single actual pixel) .

The net is that you need resolution to match your output device. And
if your output device is printing over 1000 dpi, it is counter
intuitive (yet true! and verifiable!) that your file only needs to be
a lot less than that, like 200 to 250 dpi - any extra resolution
beyond that is just thrown out! Really!

here is an excerpt from http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/und_resolution.shtml
that explains it well:
____________________________________

"Most photographers do their printing these days with a desktop inkjet
printer and the Epson Photo printers are the most popular so I'll use
them by way of example. These printers, such as the models
870/1270/2000P are (somewhat misleadingly) listed as 1440 dpi
printers. This means that they are capable of laying down that many
dots per inch. But, to create a colour image they need to use 6
different inks, so any particular pixel reproduced on a print will be
composed of some dithered composite of coloured dots using some or all
of these inks. That's why you need more dots from your printer than
you have pixels in your image.

If you divide 1440 by 6 you end up with 240. This is the true minimum
resolution needed to get a high quality photo-realistic prints from a
1440 dpi Epson printer. Many user, myself included, believe that a 360
ppi output file can produce a somewhat better print. If my original
scan is big enough to allow this I'll do so but I don't bother ressing
up a file to more than 240 ppi when making large prints."
___________________________________

Then think about your audience - the above excerpt relates to images
meant to be seen from a few inches away. A banner, realistically, is
viewed from a greater distance. Get a couple inches from a flat
screen TV (or even your monitor) and you will see the dots, but notice
how when you get back to a comfortable viewing distance you don't even
notice them

Also, even if it is viewed close, it only needs to be above 160 dpi or
so because even at 160 most regular humans can't tell the difference.
Test it out for yourself with small prints from the same printer you
are going to use - mix them up, and see where the cutoff is where your
coworkers, client, or other handy humans can actually tell higher
quality from higher resolution. Most of the time 200dpi is going to
look the same as 1000dpi. I tend to default to 150 dpi for most
prints I make and no one ever notices.

So you can have a perfect 200 dpi image up to 50 inches x 50 inches
with the software you have.
And you can use a perfectly serviceable banner image of 100dpi and go
to 100inches by 100 inches.
And please remember, you will lose more quality saving a 300dpi image
to a fairly-compressed JPEG ( a lossy format) than you will by
printing a TIFF, BMP, or PNG (all lossless) to 150dpi.

I am only going on about this because resolution and file formats are
some of the most widely misunderstood things in imaging. Fortunately,
there is a lot of information out there, and even more fortunately,
you can definatively test and prove it with small samples (12 inch by
12 inch test prints from the final output device) if you run into any
skepticism.
And, as someone who (like you) works for clients, once you educate
them about these issues and the resolution that they actually need, in
my experience you are viewed positively as a very professional and
valuable resource.

And if you already knew all this junk - that's cool. I hope it helps
someone else.

Ed

 

Hello Ed,

thank you very much for your fast reply and especially for the detailed
coments
concerning the physical overall problems on the resolution topic.

Although I was aware of most of those physical limitations and restrictions,
I was hoping to find a solution to split the whole image into several
renderings
and then stitch them together again. But as you already mentioned, this only
works
with non perspective renderings. And even the new PW camera feature won´t
change
a bit to this fact. ;-(

In my case the problem is so difficult because the aspect ratio of the final
image is so unusual.
It needs to be 5500 millimeters in length and 1500 millimeters in height.
The image shall show a huge production line of 7 big cnc-machines in a row,
connected by
a railsystem for pallets and porters. The real production-plant extends over
three large halls
(200 meters!) and therefor our customer ordered a detailed 3d-visualisation
of the whole
machine-park.

The solidworks assembly is so detailed that our customer wants to see every
nut and
bolt in the final rendering. Therefor the closest looking distance needs to
be ~ 0.5 meters and
then the viewer takes a walk along the printed image (almost 6 meters in
length).

As you also already mentioned 50 x 50 " will be the max for PW.
I tried a special interpolation plug in to stretch the rendering in my
graphic-software but the
results are not much better than scaling directly with photoshop.

May be I should tell our customer to place his machines in a square and not
in a row ;-))

I instantly hope this is not going to be a series of succesing odd jobs.

Anyway thanx & regards from Germany

Jojo