Render Settings for High Quality Prints

[Inscrutable]

Firstly, I suppose that this isn't specifically about terragen 2 itself, so if an administrator wants to move the thread to a different section, I understland.

What I'm asking is, if I intend to print out an image on A4, high quality matte paper (edge to edge), what (minimum) resolution would people recomend I render at in order to make the print as photorealistic as possible? I usually only render at 1024 x 768 as I only tend to view the pictures at that size, but obviously that's not a particularly high resolution for printing purposes.

Thanks, and sorry if it's off topic!

Inscrutable

[rcallicotte]

260 to 300...from what I've read here.

[inkydigit]

I would suggest a bare minimum of 200 dpi(dots per inch), so an A4 page 8 inches X 11 inches approx would need an image 1600 X 2200 pixels for a 200 dpi print, for better quality 300 dpi is better, much higher than this (imho) the quality becomes un-noticeable to the 'naked' eye....hope this helps, I am sure there are others who will disagree, but these are the principles I have used successfully in the past!

[Oshyan]

Poster-sized prints are rarely actually *printed* above 200lpi (lines per inch) / dpi (dots per inch). This is mostly because it makes the print process economical and the resulting works are rarely viewed at distances under a few feet, which makes any additional detail unnecessary. 300pdi is really the maximum you should need for almost any kind of print as this will achieve results equivalent to a good quality film photo print.

So to arrive at the size you need to render at, you would look at the size of your intended print in inches or centimeters, then multiply by 300 for inches or about 118 for centimeters and you have your resolution for each side. A 10"x20" print at 300 dpi would be 3000x6000.

- Oshyan

[digidon]

A local Pro Printing lab told me, once, that the average person can't discern anything sharper than 150 dpi.  After testing it, I've used that rule of thumb, especially on larger prints.  I upload 30" x 60" jpegs to a lab for "economy printing".  Then, cut out the individual images. The last 30"x60" was 3.5 MB and sharp.  Of course, I haven't had my glasses checked lately.

[JohnnyBoy]

In the US it's something like this:

Newspaper 85 lpi
Weeklies 133 lpi
Monthly 150 lpi
Quality books 200-300 lpi

Your source file should be double the resolution of the print resolution for best results.

[EmDee1]

I find the summary on "minimum image sizes" at Deviant Art very helpfull.
http://help.deviantart.com/132/

[ThinkPink]

250 to 300 ppi (or dpi if you like) and 3000x2000 for a print of 20x30 cm. this are the values for printing digital photos.

[sjefen]

This tread is dead so I'll use it to post my question

I want to print something at 80cm x 16cm, but I am wondering what dpi I should use. It is a big image, so is 200dpi to much or what?
If I go for 200dpi the render size must be 6,300px x 1,260px and that's a little to heavy for my computer

- Terje

[Henry Blewer]

You could just resize the image, but this method really looks terrible. I would just render at the required resolution. If you are low one memory, at least memory is relatively inexpensive. A 32 bit computer can be expanded to 4 gigs. Programs can access about 3.2 gigs. (at least that's what Blender.org says) I do not know how much Terragen 2 can access.

[sjefen]

I have 4 gig with memory, but I am running on 32 bit.
I will go for 64 bit later, but would Terragen 2 handle a render at 6,300px x 1260px on a 64 bit computer with no problems?

- Terje

[goldfarb]

there is no 64bit Terragen at the moment...

you could always render cropped sections of your file then combine them in photoshop/gimp/etc...

[Oshyan]

TG2 can still take advantage of 4GB of RAM on a 64 bit system - more than on a 32 bit OS even with the /3gb switch. Whether it could render at that resolution would really depend a lot on the complexity of the scene. It's certainly possible to render at that resolution or higher, particularly on a 64 bit OS. But a very complex scene would make that less likely.

- Oshyan

[Henry Blewer]

There are all sorts of tricks for getting higher quality prints from low resolution images. Change the dpi setting in a paint program. It causes the paint program to calculate more bits. It also causes the image to use much more memory. I know Corel's Paint X2 has very good printing capability. I used lower res images often and printed them using it. I gave away the printer eventually. The ink cartridges were too expensive.

[Matt]

If you're likely to be viewing the picture from more than a metre away, you probably don't need 200 dpi. Sticking to a particular dpi is good for closeup prints, but larger prints tend to be viewed from a larger distance and you can get away with lower dpi.

Matt