EOS 5D Mark IV pics get fuzzy when printed at large size

[pinp]

I have a Canon 5D Mark IV camera.

What size should the images be? I'm finding that they're not printing that clear and get kind of fuzzy when printing them very large. This is the file size I'm currently seeing. Is this correct?

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[jrhoffman75]

Welcome.

That is a small file. What camera settings are you using?

Should be using RAW or Large JPEG.

 

[pinp]

thanks for your reply!

This picture was taken with setting set to large JPEG.

Does it make sense file so small?

[jrhoffman75]

It doesn’t. Where is the file you are looking at? On a computer? How was it downloaded? 

[stevet1]

pinp,

Your camera is a 30.4mp or megapixel camera. That is 30 million, 400,000 pixels, 30,400,000

The file size you mentioned is 6720 X 4480. If you multiply 6,720 X 4,480, that equals 30,105,000, so I would say you right on the money.

If you do a Google search for "Best print size for a 30 megapixel photo", you will see several charts and recommendations for printing.

From what I can tell, a print of 20" X 16" is about as high as you would want to go before you start losing quality, assuming you are printing at the standard of 300dpi.

Steve Thomas

[Tronhard]

I am no printing expert, but when I look at the file specs you published, the thing that leaps out to me is that it is at 72ppi. The 5DIV can generate images that produce 300ppi, so there is a setting re resolution that needs to be reset, either in camera, or in your post-production software.  I would recommend shooting in RAW and, if necessary hi-quality JPG file formats.  Process the RAW image for printing.

For good prints, conventional wisdom says that you should be generating 250-300ppi - to me, that is why your printed images are not sharp. For example, the following image is a JPG file at 300ppi:

Even reduced to <9MB file size, it still retains the density of 300ppi.

Now, ppi is not the same as dpi - the latter is the ink dot density the printer will produce, but it has to have the resolution density in the image to begin with, so you could have the best resolution printer in the world and if the quality of the image is not up to it, then the print will be fuzzy.

[p4pictures]

If that is the information from a file straight from the memory card, then it is possible. I have just checked my catalog of EOS 5D Mark IV JPG images and they seem to vary from 6.75 to 12 MB file size. Due to the way JPG compression works, simple images with low detail are more easy to compress, while complex images with a lot of detail results in much larger file size. 

The 72dpi - dots per inch is irrelevant at this point. Its only use is to allow applications that have the units set to inches or centimetres to show the dimensions in those units. The print resolution is independent of this and the two are frequently confused.

When you say you are printing the images very large, how big is that? I have regularly printed such images 24 inches x 36 inches, and sometimes larger. The key is the pixel resolution which is the 6720 x 4480 and that is the full 30MP of your camera.

[pinp]

Yes, It is straight from the memory card. 

I tried printing it larger than a 24x36

so then that makes sense.

You say for this camera the largest I should go to retain clarity and sharpness should be 24x36?

[p4pictures]

If you print at very large sizes then usually the viewing distance for the print is such that it looks good at a distance but not so much very close up. One suggestion if you are printing very large is to increase the sharpness amount of the Picture Style that you have selected in your camera, or apply some sharpening in a software tool like Photoshop on the computer before printing. 

As an example I have printed a 20MP image from my EOS R6 on a large format printer and the print was 44-inch wide and 66-inch tall. At that size the detail of a small section viewed up close is not great, but to view the whole print you have to stand a lot of feet back from the print and then it looks good.

[wq9nsc]

For printing very large photos, capture the images in RAW format and make any processing corrections in post before saving as a TIF file for printing.  JPG compressed files work fine for many uses but when trying to print the largest image size possible, you don't want any information discarded prior to printing and TIF files are the best in this respect.

And depending upon what you are trying to capture, it may be possible and advisable to capture it as a matrix of images which are stitched together in post before sending to print.  This is a great approach to printing very large, very high resolution landscape images because instead of one 30 MB set of image data, you have a matrix composed of multiples of this 30 MB sensor data allowing you to print very large images with excellent detail.

Rodger