PRINTING ON A MASSIVE SCALE (53 FEET)

[Jamie Brown]

I've been asked to volunteer and submit a landscape photo that will be PRINTED INSIDE ALONG A WALL THAT IS 53 FEET by 15+ FEET and I am not sure how to properly prepare the file for this, as the viewing distance will be both from afar and up close. (The wall it will be placed along is in a large commons area with an open staircase that leads to upstairs balcony area. People on stairs will be able to touch it, they'll be standing so close.)

The medium is a fabric panel (for acoustics) and the printing company requires CYMK, 100% at 200dpi or 50% at 300dpi with a 4" bleed on all sides.  Accepted formats will be ai, eps, tiff, psd, jpg or gif. The image printed at full size will be 636” wide x 189-3/4”   

I only work in PS (not illustrator nor Lightroom) at the size they are requesting I can only seem to save it as a PSB format and the filesize is well over 25GB. To create an actual file size to those measurements will be too massive to work with, let alone export, save, or transfer. I'm sure, never having done anything of this magnitude, I'm doing many things wrong to the images from the beginning.  The main issue I seem to be having is sheer filesize and not knowing how best to size the image. I could create the file at 50% of it's size at 300pdi , which would be 318"x 95" (not including 4" bleed on all sides) which, even at half it's size, is still WAY over the 2GB-4GB file size limits with saving as a psd or tiff formats. 

To simplify my line of questioning, let's "assume" I've photographed and stitched together multiple images to increase megapixel count and file size into a panoramic image. Let's also pretend I removed noise from the raw files and I've done basic edits (IN CYMK) and flattened (after saving layered copy). NOW, What would I do at this point in regards to "cropping" or "resizing" to the image to fit the measurements listed above and sharpen for printing?  How do I create a file large enough to fill the space that maintains as much resolution as possible without making this file too massive to save?

Note: The half size sample I submitted has a fair amount of noise/jpg artifacts. I'll submit another question on another thread on how best to remove this. I cannot submit the image because of obvious reasons, but here is a screenshot version of the space it will fill. The company is capable of printing a strike off sample to test resolution and color quality.

[Damien Symonds]

4 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

To simplify my line of questioning, let's "assume" I've photographed and stitched together multiple images to increase megapixel count

Let's assume nothing of the sort.  Let's get one thing clear right away - the camera you have captures easily enough pixels for this job.  Absolutely no multiple-image-stitching required.

Of course, you might have another reason to shoot and stitch, if your lens can't allow you to capture a wide enough scene in one frame.  That's cool.  But megapixels are NOT a reason to stitch.

[Damien Symonds]

7 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

The medium is a fabric panel (for acoustics) and the printing company requires CYMK, 100% at 200dpi or 50% at 300dpi with a 4" bleed on all sides.  Accepted formats will be ai, eps, tiff, psd, jpg or gif.

I need to know more about these specs.  Did they send you a PDF of information?  Or an email?

[Damien Symonds]

39 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

I've done basic edits (IN CYMK)

By the way, @Jamie Brown, NEVER do edits in CMYK.  CMYK is an output space only, you must do all your editing in RGB exactly as normal.  In fact, make your entire editing process completely normal.  Don't crop, don't resize.  Just do everything the same as you usually do, as if it was any other photo.

 

[Jamie Brown]

Here are their guidelines.

[Jamie Brown]

I found that by stitching it made the image too wide, making me crop it anyhow, but I did consider the stitching as a means to cram more pixels into a smaller space. I just did not see how I could take a single 7000 pixel image and stretch it to 95,000 pixels, so was attempting to layer 3, 7000 pixel images end to end to create more to begin with. 

[Jamie Brown]

I originally took the 3 images (I now realize for the view and placement of the image I only need 2 stitched images, because I just end up cropping out most of the third on far right anyway) and opened them in camera RAW in sRGB. Made some adjustments then opened them into Photoshop and selected photo merge. Once the images were merged I made some adjustments to color, curves, hue/sat, etc. Then flattened and cropped the image to roughly the size (since the stitching option left some blank pixels). I then converted to CYMK. (Is this the right process?)

[Damien Symonds]

Have you talked to a FabriArt representative about this job?

[Jamie Brown]

Extensively.

[Damien Symonds]

8 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

Here are their guidelines.

These specs stink of BS.  This job of yours will be printed at about 50ppi, so for them to say they need 150ppi is complete nonsense.  Plus there's no information about the CMYK profile you need to use.

Have you worked with these people before?  Do you have any proof that they're actually competent?

Just now, Jamie Brown said:

Extensively.

And they're sticking to this rubbish about "50% at 200ppi"?

[Jamie Brown]

I have never worked with them before. They will print this in 8 foot wide vertical strips and piece them together like canvases butted up next to one another to create one large seamless area. They have done amazing installations in Colleges throughout the Pacific Northwest... I have asked them repeatedly if they have every printed ONE singular image to this size and if it was able to retain quality.  It would seem that one photo would have issued printed this big and look clear and not pixelated at such a close viewing distance. Another photographer friend suggested perhaps creating the image to look more painterly, and not try to go for tack sharp reality, if the quality is not going to match that of a photo printed on glossy paper.

The end result they are wanting is for this to look as if there is no wall and you were viewing the hills behind like through a window. 

http://www.fabricpanels.com/Portfolio-Project_listing.htm#or

[Jamie Brown]

Haha, yes. Although I personally have not questioned them on this. I did do my own research and most places said what you're saying (online in blogs and such) that 50ppi is plenty for anything over 25 feet. I never did ask about WHICH CYMK version to use, I just did the default. I've been feeling very overwhelmed by this process from the get go. Especially since it's unpaid, in an area I am not familiar with and on top of my current client load in my busy season.  

I have tried my best to research as I go, but a good friend said I need YOU! I'm down to the wire as the deadline for this was last week and now the project manager is having to shuffle things around on the build out since I keep going back and forth with the company letting them know I can't seem to do what they are asking for.  Here are some smaller jpg versions of what I have been working with. To fit the space available with the steep pitch of the staircase I had to "lift" the wheat in the bottom foreground to keep it from being cropped out and still allow for the top of the hills to align with the top step of the landing.  The file labeled panorama stitch I reduced noise in post (not before). I feel like I need to scrap everything I've done and just start over from scratch following your orders.  When I took the photo the wheat was green, so I had to make it golden in post... of course that was in May, I've been working on this so long that wheat is now golden so I could even go out and reshoot the whole scene if need be. But we would miss our deadline and delay the installation by 2 months.  

The images stitched together for output the colors are toned down, that could be the CYMK color shift, but I did tone the gold out of wheat to match the colors in the building better, not sure that's necessary as I like the brighter tones of the srgb individual pics when seen side by side....

[Damien Symonds]

22 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

They have done amazing installations in Colleges throughout the Pacific Northwest

Have you seen one?  For real, I mean?

[Damien Symonds]

23 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

I have asked them repeatedly if they have every printed ONE singular image to this size and if it was able to retain quality.  It would seem that one photo would have issued printed this big and look clear and not pixelated at such a close viewing distance. Another photographer friend suggested perhaps creating the image to look more painterly, and not try to go for tack sharp reality, if the quality is not going to match that of a photo printed on glossy paper.

Neither of us have time to debate this, nor to change what you've done.  You've already stitched, so let's persist with it.

[Jamie Brown]

No, never in person and not even really online...   Seems like an awful lot of trust in this process on both sides....

And I'm sorry I cannot figure out how to respond to you on the same conversation thread. I keep adding to the bottom. Good thing you track well. haha

I'll try to learn how to do that.

[Damien Symonds]

2 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

The images stitched together for output the colors are toned down, that could be the CYMK color shift, but I did tone the gold out of wheat to match the colors in the building better, not sure that's necessary as I like the brighter tones of the srgb individual pics when seen side by side....

I need to see the RGB master version, not the CMYK version.

[Jamie Brown]

3 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

Have you seen one?  For real, I mean?

No, never in person and not even really online...   Seems like an awful lot of trust in this process on both sides....

And I'm sorry I cannot figure out how to respond to you on the same conversation thread. I keep adding to the bottom. Good thing you track well. haha

I'll try to learn how to do that.

[Damien Symonds]

Just now, Jamie Brown said:

No, never in person and not even really online.

If you had, you'd know that these things never look crisp up close.  It's perfectly normal.  I'm just trying to put your mind at ease about the quality aspects of this.

And instead, I need to make you appropriately nervous about the issues that really matter.

https://www.damiensymonds.net/2011/05/please-be-wary-of-cmyk.html

1 minute ago, Jamie Brown said:

And I'm sorry I cannot figure out how to respond to you on the same conversation thread. I keep adding to the bottom. Good thing you track well. haha

I'll try to learn how to do that.

No no! Not at all!  You're doing perfectly.

[Jamie Brown]

1 minute ago, Damien Symonds said:

I need to see the RGB master version, not the CMYK version.

Here it is one sRGB version of the stitched pano, but now I see this was before the edits to color of wheat were made to the other jpg I submitted... now I'm confused.

Grr... this is maddening on my end I came at this project from so many angles at varying times, I can't keep them all straight. 

[Damien Symonds]

I can't stress this enough.  You must have a completely edited master file in RGB.

[Jamie Brown]

Just now, Damien Symonds said:

I can't stress this enough.  You must have a completely edited master file in RGB.

Ok, so, should I take those 3 rgb fully edited images with the golden wheat and restitch them to create the panorama? (This time only using the left two where have found is the best section of the scene to fit the space available? I could look to see if I have ONE singular image that fits that, but it's such an odd  space to fill (from that original photo showing the wall and the shape it will be)...

 

[Damien Symonds]

Gosh no!  Just make the wheat golden in your RGB file.  How did you do it last time?  A Hue/Saturation layer?

[Jamie Brown]

3 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

Gosh no!  Just make the wheat golden in your RGB file.  How did you do it last time?  A Hue/Saturation layer?

Yes

 

[Damien Symonds]

Great! So just do that again.  DEFINITELY don't try to restitch anything.

[Damien Symonds]

By the way, I know you didn't post for editing advice, but if it was my photo, I'd use Channel Mixer for the wheat.  What do you think of this?