By David Gewirtz
Here at Connected Photographer, we like to bring you information straight from leading experts on various photographic topics. This week, I had the opportunity to interview Steve Kozel, President of Pixel Outpost (at http://www.pixeloutpost.com), a company that specializes in creating poster-sized prints from digital images.
"As with all prints, make sure your shadow areas have some definition and contrast or the images deep areas will just seem muddy."
David:
Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.
Steve:My name is Steve Kozel and I am President of Pixel Outpost. I have been in the graphics business since 1980. Prior to this startup, I was CEO of O.N.E. Color Communications, which was a 89 year old company specializing in creative retouching and assembly for the San Francisco advertising agencies (Goodby, FCB, Publicis) as well as corporate packaging clients (Dreyers, Safeway, Clorox). We sold O.N.E. to a public company, Matthews International, in 2003 and I left in 2004.
David:My understanding is you have a service that prints very large format photographs. Can you tell me about it?
Steve:The idea to start Pixel Outpost was born from a trip in the summer of 2004. I had taken some great shots with a Nikon D70 and wanted to get large prints on canvas. I found I could get them, but not nearly as easily as I know it could have been. The web-based large format print option for consumers is generally unknown.
By focusing solely on this niche, we bring some cool options to the photo hobbyist and we help open up a new world of imaging options to the regular digital camera user. Our niche is fast, easy and competitively priced large prints on a variety of substrates.
David:Is it really possible to create a high-quality very large print from a consumer digital camera? How?
Steve:Though many are skeptical, we have had tremendous feedback from clients who are impressed by the quality of the large prints we produce. The fast growing megapixel count on digital cameras and the advent of prosumer digital SLR's enable great shots to get "big". You view an 8x10 image very differently than a 23x36 image, and our large images are typically viewed from [a distance of] 36 inches and beyond, so visually our prints look very similar to the color and clarity of a standard print.
David:I noticed you print on different paper types as well as canvas. Are you printing on real, art-style canvas or is it a textured paper?
Steve:The fine art paper and artist canvas materials art real "art-style" materials. The fine art paper is a very thick watercolor paper with a pebbled texture, while the two canvas papers are actual art canvas made specifically for imaging photos for art prints. These special papers stand out from the typical photo papers and the prints are richer and very suited to hanging as art.
David:What kind of gear do you use to make all this happen? How long does it take to print one of your largest, highest quality pictures (actually printer time, not return-to-customer time)?
Steve:A typical photo finisher will use a photographic dye-based process for imaging. This technology is mostly limited to 20x30 size and only photo papers can be used. Inkjet technology is used to process large images and it gives us the ability to print on our canvas and fine art materials.
The processing of our larger images can take up to 35 minutes, including computer processing time, print and trim time. We allow 4 to 8 hours dry time for most prints (depends on substrate used) but we ship 90% of our orders the same day.
David:So, just how large can we make our prints? What are the limitations?
Steve:We make 60" x 40" prints that look great. In order to make a print this size, you need either a 6+ megapixel camera or scanned image at 8x10 at 600 dpi. Our limitation is 60" in the shortest direction.
David:What are some tips for preparing images for the best possible results?
Steve:To achieve superior quality for your images, use the super high quality (SHQ) or Super Fine (SF) modes on your camera. This will require a larger storage card for your camera in order to get a suitable number of shots available, but it will ensure better prints at any size. Make the small investment in time to learn how to use all the features of your camera and you will get better results.
"Make the small investment in time to learn how to use all the features of your camera and you will get better results."
David:
Do you care only about pixels in an image file, or is dpi important? Are there any special Photoshop printing settings that should be applied to the file before it's sent to you?
Steve:The amount of pixels is most important for creating large images. Many higher resolution cameras create a large image at 72dpi. When this image is used for 4x6 prints, the printer will decrease the size and increase the dpi, but the 72dpi images straight from the camera are great for large prints.
Software such as Photoshop or Elements can certainly make almost any photo better. Your normal image corrections (brightness, contrast, and color) will be the only settings you need to worry about prior to sending a file to Pixel Outpost. As with all prints, make sure your shadow areas have some definition and contrast or the images deep areas will just seem muddy.
David:Are there any rules of thumb about what'll make the best quality for a given picture size?
Steve:[Steve provided us with a very interesting table, shown below, in Table A.]
Table A: Optimal sizes for large prints| Camera pixels | Resolution | File size | Max. print size |
| 3 megapixel | 1536x2048 | 1.6MB | 22x28" |
| 4 megapixel | 1704x2272 | 2.0MB | 24x30" |
| 5 megapixel | 1944x2592 | 2.5MB | 30x40" |
| 6 megapixel | 2112x2816 | 2.8MB | 54x60" |
| 7 megapixel | 2304x3072 | 3.1MB | 48x72" |
| 8 megapixel | 2448x3264 | 3.5MB | 48x72" |
What else should we know to get the best pictures possible?
Steve:The best pictures come from the best photographers. If Connected Photographers have made the jump to digital, they realize it opens up so many options for making great looking photos.
David:Where do you think the technology will be going in the next ten years?
Steve:I believe the market for printing photos at home will stay flat or decline as photo kiosk options and Web-based options become easier and more understood by the picture-taking public. Professional photographers want a print source they can trust for consistent quality, turnaround and price. They need to try sites such as Pixel Outpost to find out there are surprising options for large format prints.
More technology will be built into the cameras (for example, anti-shake, auto red-eye, color modes), and the storage of the highest resolution photos will not be an issue as the removable media cards now allow hundreds of "best resolution" shots to be stored. This will allow the average photographer more shots to choose from, and consequently the photos that make the cut will be much better.
These advancements, along with easier to use image correction software (think Adobe's Healing Brush), will make photo flaws a rarity for the digital-savvy photographer.
The pool of interesting digital photos taken and posted by consumers will grow and may have an impact on the normal stock photo models.
Wireless connections from camera to computer or storage device (think iPod) will allow mobile photographers more options to store and share.