Printing 13"x19"

Thanks for the reply. I do not have Photoshop and was trying to avoid having to get it. I was afraid though that Aperture does not have a resizing feature. Does Photoshop elements have a resizing feature or is some other add on program like Geniune Fractals recommended?

I have seen discussions here about exporting the image and changing the DPI setting. Is this something that will resize the image? Sorry to be asking stupid questions, but I am learning (mostly how much there is still to learn). It is like an episode of LOST, just when you think you have an answer, you get 3 more questions.

Bobby

P.S. I meant Greetings FROM SC. We'uns don't talk to good down here sometimes.

Thank you all for your help so far. I spent several hours over the weekend trying different things. Here is what has happened so far.

I got the printer last week and had a nice 8.5" x 11" print the 3rd time out. I messed up the color management settings, but got that figured out. I was printing from a NEF file that I had adjusted only the colors in Aperture. Of course being excited with the results, I loaded a piece of 13" x 19" paper and let rip. The sharpness of the print was terrible. It looked like everything as fuzzy. Now I was printing on the smooth surface fine art paper in 13 x 19 versus the advanced glossy in 8.5 x 11. I did change the profiles in the print set up, but did not do any sharpness adjustments. In the Aperture print dialog, I checked max. DPI and it was showing something in 150+ range for 13x19 versus 280+ for the 8.5x11.

I do not have Photoshop or elements. I was doing all of this through Aperture. Yesterday, I did download Gimp and tried upsizing a file in Gimp to increase the pixels. Richard, you are right, it just blurred what was there. I tried again with sharpening in Gimp and it helped but, it has that digital look to it and it is really crappy. Again, not having used Photoshop before, how much of what adjustment you apply is still a learning experience for me.

I have been working in the B&W darkroom for years. Got the D70s a year+ ago. Working in iPhoto got me excited about the possibilites of the digital darkroom. I was printing to an Epson C86 with reasonable results, but decided to finally get a better printer. I purchased Aperture knowing it was not as powerful an editor as Photoshop, but that it had several capabilities more advanced than iPhoto, which was meeting most of my needs.

Can someone suggest a print workflow or what settings to check? I have read in several forums that getting sharp 13x19 should be no problem from a D70s RAW file. I was under the impression that I would just knock a nice (as in sharp) print out, no problem.

I am printing from Aperture. I choose the B9180 as the printer. Set the paper profile, size and system managed options. I use the max DPI. When I put in the paper size, Aperture puts in the calculated (?) DPI. I tried putting in a higher DPI, but it comes back with a message saying that their are not enough pixels. The NEF files in in the 5+ Mb range. I do not remember the pixels shown for the file, but somewhere in the 2000+ x 1800+ range off the top of my head. Maybe I have something set wrong in the camera? I would appreciate any comments or help.

Bobby

Thanks again for the help. Charles can you address what is wrong with Aperture's print routine versus Photoshop? Since I do not have PS and would prefer not to spend $650 just to print, I was hoping you could expand upon the differences and fault within Aperture. Would PS Elements be sufficient?

David, I appreciate your input. Concerning the print heads, they were calibrated when I set up the printer last week. The 8x10 prints look very nice. It may just be something with needing to sharpen the image when printing to 13x19 or not having the paper profile correct. Can anyone suggest a sharpening routine for a 6Mb file when printed at 13x19?

David, I have read that prints need to be in the 250-300 dpi range for sharp results. You are saying you are getting good results from 155 dpi resolution. I think I will crop a photo and print on the glossy paper I have at 155 dpi just to see if there is a difference with the paper surfaces.

Thanks again.

I have just tried an experiment since I got home. I printed a 8.5x11 Adv. Gloosy of a picture. The file was a NEF about 5.7 Mb 30??x19??. The DPI in the print dialouge was around 280. I cropped the picture about 1/2 and the DPI turned into 157 which is to be expected. I printed this on the same size Adv. Glossy paper. I have tried with the same sharpening as for the upcropped and then sharpened a different amount. The cropped pictures are not as nice as expected.

So my question - am I doing something wrong or what is the definition of a good 13x19 print from a 6Mb file? Like in my first post I have seen a 20x24 from a 3Mb file at my local camera shop that looked much better than my 13x19 or cropped 8x10. Is Photoshop this much better or do you suppose they are using a upsizing program?

Thanks again for all the help. A friend came over last night and we were looking at images. His preception of what was acceptable versus mine was different. I think reading comments on photo websites about "stunning" prints and "tack sharp" images had raised my expectations too much. From a distance, the 13x19 prints at 150ish dpi look ok to me. I just expected more I think.

Bobby