PRINTING ON A MASSIVE SCALE (53 FEET)

[Damien Symonds]

In case you like it, here's the file so you can see how:  Download PSD

[Damien Symonds]

34 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

I never did ask about WHICH CYMK version to use

This is SO important.  Your photo will rock, or look f&*king awful, depending on getting the CMYK conversion right.

You must ask the question, and don't stop asking it until you get a clear answer.  "What CMYK profile do I use?"

[Jamie Brown]

10 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

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?

I like that, I was just realizing that I cannot duplicate the wheat edit on the pano that wasn't edited prior, because I switched the pano to CYMK  THEN edited the wheat.

Then I went back to the original jpgs and edited them to match in srgb. So I don't have a pano that is edited in srgb. I was just trying to re-edit it and can't get it to look right in hue/sat alone.

I tried selective color and played in neutrals but I like the idea of going into channels. It's hard to get a true golden wheat that's not too green or too bland.

1 minute ago, Damien Symonds said:

This is SO important.  Your photo will rock, or look f&*king awful, depending on getting the CMYK conversion right.

You must ask the question, and don't stop asking it until you get a clear answer.  "What CMYK profile do I use?"

Ok I'll ask them now!

[Damien Symonds]

Just now, Jamie Brown said:

So I don't have a pano that is edited in srgb.

Crap

[Jamie Brown]

5 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

Crap

double crap.

So, in that image can you see the noise? Should I go back to original files and start over? Or do you think the original 3 jpgs I sent look ok to just use THOSE to restitch?

[Jamie Brown]

I'm sorry I have an appointment in about 15 min. I may need to pick up later. If you have any more advice, a checklist for me that I can pick up where we left off when I return that would be awesome! I promise once this is all said and done I'll send you a photo of me standing in front of this GIANT 53 foot wall as proof your techniques work!  

Should I start from the original RAW files (narrowing it down to 2 since you've said I don't need more images stitched to get better resolution)?

Should I use the edited sRGB files I posted originally for this? Or is there noise that I did not remedy when I converted them from RAW to JPG?

Once I (stitch) edit those together, what's the next step?

After all edits are made, flatten and save as what format?

How do I sharpen, resize and crop to those specific measurements and at what ppi?

Oh and WHEN do I convert to CYMK, I'll find out from them WHICH one specifically.

Thanks for troubleshooting... I should have approached you THREE WEEKS ago when I started!   You would have saved me a lot of time and headache and heartache.

No good free deed goes unpunished, right? Dude, wait, how do YOU get paid?

 

[Damien Symonds]

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

I'm sorry I have an appointment in about 15 min.

I'm sorry too.  It's sports carnival day at my kids' school today, so I went along there for a bit.  First place for my son in his race!  I've come back to catch up on a few questions.

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

Should I start from the original RAW files (narrowing it down to 2 since you've said I don't need more images stitched to get better resolution)?

Should I use the edited sRGB files I posted originally for this? Or is there noise that I did not remedy when I converted them from RAW to JPG?

I forgot about the noise!  How incompetent of me!  I'll need to see a 100% crop to assess the noise.

Here are the instructions for raw noise removal.  If you didn't do the noise removal properly at the beginning, then yes, you'll have to start over. For a job of this magnitude, it's CRITICAL that all noise is gone.

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

Once I (stitch) edit those together, what's the next step?

After all edits are made, flatten and save as what format?

As I said earlier, make sure you do all your editing in the exactly usual way.  That means NO FLATTENING.  Make sure you save your fully-edited master file as a PSD file with all the layers intact.  Read this important information

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

How do I sharpen

I'm so desperately sorry, I can't tell you how to sharpen, because you're not in my Sharpening Class.  I can't talk about class content outside of class.  (This probably answers your last question.)

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

resize and crop to those specific measurements and at what ppi?

This is a VERY good question - possibly the most important question of all.  But we'll come back to it a bit later, once all the editing is done and the PSD file is saved.

Please remember, though, DON'T CROP DURING EDITING.  Leave all those blank edges around your image and everything.  This is so important.  Read more info

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

Oh and WHEN do I convert to CYMK, I'll find out from them WHICH one specifically.

Yes, this is vital.  I guess I don't need to remind you how BIG and PUBLIC this photo is going to be, so we MUST get the colour right.

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

Thanks for troubleshooting... I should have approached you THREE WEEKS ago when I started!   You would have saved me a lot of time and headache and heartache.

Yeah, I wish that too, but the important thing is that you're here now.  We'll rock this, I promise.

[Jamie Brown]

1 hour ago, Damien Symonds said:

I'm sorry too.  It's sports carnival day at my kids' school today, so I went along there for a bit.  First place for my son in his race!  I've come back to catch up on a few questions.

I forgot about the noise!  How incompetent of me!  I'll need to see a 100% crop to assess the noise.

Here are the instructions for raw noise removal.  If you didn't do the noise removal properly at the beginning, then yes, you'll have to start over. For a job of this magnitude, it's CRITICAL that all noise is gone.

As I said earlier, make sure you do all your editing in the exactly usual way.  That means NO FLATTENING.  Make sure you save your fully-edited master file as a PSD file with all the layers intact.  Read this important information

I'm so desperately sorry, I can't tell you how to sharpen, because you're not in my Sharpening Class.  I can't talk about class content outside of class.  (This probably answers your last question.)

This is a VERY good question - possibly the most important question of all.  But we'll come back to it a bit later, once all the editing is done and the PSD file is saved.

Please remember, though, DON'T CROP DURING EDITING.  Leave all those blank edges around your image and everything.  This is so important.  Read more info

Yes, this is vital.  I guess I don't need to remind you how BIG and PUBLIC this photo is going to be, so we MUST get the colour right.

Yeah, I wish that too, but the important thing is that you're here now.  We'll rock this, I promise.

Ok, going back to the original files. Although my Camera Raw has like 10 sliders to tend to, not just the simple luminance and color. 

[Damien Symonds]

Yes, I know, and you'll learn about the others in the Raw Class.  But for now, those are the two important ones.

[Jamie Brown]

3 hours ago, Damien Symonds said:

I'm sorry too.  It's sports carnival day at my kids' school today, so I went along there for a bit.  First place for my son in his race!  I've come back to catch up on a few questions.

I forgot about the noise!  How incompetent of me!  I'll need to see a 100% crop to assess the noise.

Here are the instructions for raw noise removal.  If you didn't do the noise removal properly at the beginning, then yes, you'll have to start over. For a job of this magnitude, it's CRITICAL that all noise is gone.

As I said earlier, make sure you do all your editing in the exactly usual way.  That means NO FLATTENING.  Make sure you save your fully-edited master file as a PSD file with all the layers intact.  Read this important information

I'm so desperately sorry, I can't tell you how to sharpen, because you're not in my Sharpening Class.  I can't talk about class content outside of class.  (This probably answers your last question.)

This is a VERY good question - possibly the most important question of all.  But we'll come back to it a bit later, once all the editing is done and the PSD file is saved.

Please remember, though, DON'T CROP DURING EDITING.  Leave all those blank edges around your image and everything.  This is so important.  Read more info

Yes, this is vital.  I guess I don't need to remind you how BIG and PUBLIC this photo is going to be, so we MUST get the colour right.

Yeah, I wish that too, but the important thing is that you're here now.  We'll rock this, I promise.

 

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

Ok, going back to the original files. Although my Camera Raw has like 10 sliders to tend to, not just the simple luminance and color. 

Ok here are the 700px 100% crops of both the "first draft" I was working with and the "back to the drawing board" version.

The first Noisy one is from the sample I sent to printers I believe. The other one is the one I just went back to the raw and started from scratch... to eradicate the noise I really felt like I had to make it look awfully plastic like... hoping you're going to give me some tips at end on how to remedy that? Because at this point I like the first noisy one better because I can at least make out some of the details. Here are the settings I used for new edit: luminance=63, detail= 0, contrast= 0, color= 33, detail=16, smooth=4   

Looking back at these numbers I'm worried I should have brought back some detail and contrast?

[Damien Symonds]

That does look like you've overdone it.  I think 63 is unnecessarily high.

[Jamie Brown]

9 hours ago, Damien Symonds said:

That does look like you've overdone it.  I think 63 is unnecessarily high.

Ok how about now? It's at 36 for luminance and 27 for color and I also made adjustments to other sliders as well, like detail is cranked to 40. 

This is so time consuming, this project has been a beast to "volunteer" time for.  :'( I will not move forward until you feel satisfied with noise removal because I moved ahead last night and painstakingly removed all sensor dust spots on an image that will now be trashed.

[Jamie Brown]

I have not applied ANY sharpening in camera Raw while opening into PS, I did however in that first noisy version. Which is I think why I like it better than these last 2 non-noisy crop samples I posted. They just look so soft right off the bat. I know this is a landscape, taken from far away so there is not much that's tack sharp like the eyelashes I'm used to looking for. I suppose if the individual trees on treeline are defined that's the equivalent of the eyelashes on a face?

[Jamie Brown]

Just heard back from the printing company, here is what he sent me:

  We can upscale the image so that the pixels themselves do not become visible as larger visible squares.   In doing so the image does not get sharper or really higher resolution, but it won't be pixelated.    After all, we are only as good as the resolution of the original photograph(s).   I've not ordered the strikeoff yet, so if you want to upload an edited image and indicate where I should draw the strikeoff from, I'll crop out that part and order it tomorrow morning.  The strikeoff will be 24” x 24” in dimension.   Do you want to select a 12” x 12” area out of the artwork that will be doubled in size for the printing (matching what will occur in actual production) that will be submitted to the contractor and owner for review?    It seems they have a pretty big focus on the clarity of the wheat. 

[Jamie Brown]

I'm getting lost in this thread, not sure how to address individual "quotes". But, here is where I am at.

I have adjusted the layers to where I feel comfortable. I have saved this psd file.

Now I have a flattened (unsaved) file... what comes next?

Do I save this before moving forward as a jpeg? tiff? eps? psb?

Do I now go through and remove all sensor dust from the image, or should I do this to the layered psd file prior to flattening?

Do I crop to the appropriate size?

Do I sharpen (knowing you are unable to give me advice on this without taking the class which I fully can respect)?

Do I convert to CYMK?

Are you able to tell me how to take this file and crop/size it to their exact specs of 4" bleed on all sides with the overall space needing to be 636" x189 3/4"

or should I let them do the, converting to color profile, sharpening, cropping and resizing on their end? 

 

[Jamie Brown]

Also should note that on this NEW EDIT I just used the singular image, not a stitching of multiple images, because frankly I did not shoot it properly from the get go to truly take advantage of maximum pixels. (Meaning I did not shoot the area of the hill I wanted in the scene with a 600mm telephoto zoom lens and did not photograph that scene using 35 images that I could then stitch together to create one massive image at 25,000 pixels x 49,000 pixels.) So stitching together the 3 horizontal shots I took to only then crop it to the 1.25 image space that fits the wall appropriately may not have been working to my advantage in the first place like I had hoped.  

I did add a section of wheat in the foreground that was in focus to give more clarity to that section of the image since that will be what's at eye level and closest to viewers.

So I now only have a "measly" 7360 pixels x 4912 pixels that will need to stretched to over fifty feet wide.   I did not crop it to the specific section of the image, nor I did not sharpen it or adjust the ppi or resize the file at all, I also did not convert it's color profile. I just sent it to the printers so they attempt to do all that on their end  (by their trained technicians) who will then find a 12x12 square that they will then stretch to print on a 24"x24" inch test strip of fabric to see what happens. 

At that point, depending on how it looks I may be either joining one of your classes or checking back to see if you have any further tips or tricks to see this project to completion...

Lord, help me.

 

 

[Damien Symonds]

4 hours ago, Jamie Brown said:

Ok how about now? It's at 36 for luminance and 27 for color

Yep, this is great.

4 hours ago, Jamie Brown said:

Just heard back from the printing company, here is what he sent me:

  We can upscale the image

Great news!!!!

1 hour ago, Jamie Brown said:

I have adjusted the layers to where I feel comfortable. I have saved this psd file.

Now I have a flattened (unsaved) file... what comes next?

Do I save this before moving forward as a jpeg? tiff? eps? psb?

Do I now go through and remove all sensor dust from the image, or should I do this to the layered psd file prior to flattening?

Oh crap, yes, of COURSE you must do that before flattening.  That cloning/healing layer must be part of your PSD file.

May I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

[Damien Symonds]

42 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

Also should note that on this NEW EDIT I just used the singular image, not a stitching of multiple images.  

I did add a section of wheat in the foreground that was in focus to give more clarity to that section of the image since that will be what's at eye level and closest to viewers.

So I now only have a "measly" 7360 pixels x 4912 pixels that will need to stretched to over fifty feet wide.

This is excellent.  Not measly at all.

43 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

I did not crop it to the specific section of the image, nor I did not sharpen it or adjust the ppi or resize the file at all, I also did not convert it's color profile. I just sent it to the printers so they attempt to do all that on their end  (by their trained technicians) who will then find a 12x12 square that they will then stretch to print on a 24"x24" inch test strip of fabric to see what happens.

Oh, you've already sent it?  Ok, it should be fine.

[Jamie Brown]

5 minutes ago, Damien Symonds said:

Yep, this is great.

Great news!!!!

Oh crap, yes, of COURSE you must do that before flattening.  That cloning/healing layer must be part of your PSD file.

May I see a screenshot of your layers panel?

If I have to clone out those effing sensor dust specks one more time I may lose it... I have done it to the image at various places FOUR times only to have to start from the beginning because of an overlooked or skipped step. FML. So, I did just read about your workflow right before you responded and wrote the steps out. 

[Jamie Brown]

I called the printing company and said I wasn't sure what step to take next, wasn't sure if I should clone spots on layered file (seemed reasonable) or if I should flatten then do it. He suggested flatten THEN remove... so now if I need to make any adjustments to layered sections I've lost all that fricken cloning/healing. I may as well go back and start doing it now to the layered file. Right above the wheat swap layer and right beneath my level adjustments... right?

[Damien Symonds]

9 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

I called the printing company and said I wasn't sure what step to take next, wasn't sure if I should clone spots on layered file (seemed reasonable) or if I should flatten then do it. He suggested flatten THEN remove

This is yet another pointer towards their incompetence.  I'm getting increasingly nervous about these people, that's for sure.

[Damien Symonds]

13 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

There's no way to remove the spots "correctly" with the layers like this.  So whatever you've already done, just go with it.  Don't do it over.

This is a lovely photo, by the way.  I'm sorry I haven't remembered to say that before now.

[Damien Symonds]

Now, what information did you get about the CMYK profile?

[Jamie Brown]

Just now, Damien Symonds said:

Now, what information did you get about the CMYK profile?

Thank you for comment about photo, I meant to congratulate your son on 1st place, too!  

So, I did just go back and remove the spots on layered file, so that's taken care of. I tried the ctrl+alt+shift+e and it didn't work with healing tool, so I just ended up adding new blank layer and oddly it worked. I didn't think it would, but I can toggle the spots on and off now. I resaved the whole thing as a layered psd.

I have NOT heard back from CYMK, what I think is happening is there is a 3rd party selling these fabric tracks who is not the actual company printing the panels... so they don't know as much as they need to. The gentlemen I've been communicating with is sweet as pie and I've been grateful for his help with giving me more info and troubleshooting along the way. (Even if it's limited knowledge.) He thought the default CYMK SWOP v2 was appropriate profile.

Let's pretend for a min that this company doesn't know what they're doing. What would YOU do next to prepare the file? I'd love to get a step ahead of them and be DONE with this project. It's giving me a bit of PTSD and as much as I wanted to be a part of such a cool project I fear that every time I see this darn thing it's going to be a bit of a trigger emotionally if it's not done properly. It is going in my son's brand new school that's being built across the street from my photography studio. (Surmounting pressure because as you know it will be seen by thousands at ribbon cutting and by generations of children and parents for decades to come.)

[Damien Symonds]

4 minutes ago, Jamie Brown said:

So, I did just go back and remove the spots on layered file, so that's taken care of. I tried the ctrl+alt+shift+e and it didn't work with healing tool, so I just ended up adding new blank layer and oddly it worked. I didn't think it would, but I can toggle the spots on and off now.

Do you understand why this is not correct?  (It's the only thing you could have done here, but it's not correct.)

Because now that you've done that, you can no longer adjust any of the layers below.

Please confirm your understanding of this.