I, too, am surprised that the printer asked for jpeg format as that is a compressed image format and some quality is lost by converting to that format, even at "minimum' compression. My printer accepts .psd's, .bmp's and .tiff's. I usually give him a .bmp file that he sometimes tweaks the sharpness and colors on with Photoshop b4 he prints it. For very large prints, 150dpi is ok but I wouldn't go any lower. I always render my stuff at 200dpi. The image size is just the number of pixels of the width or height of your image times the dpi you want. So a 20" x 30" print at 200dpi would be 4000 x 6000 pixels. If FE doesn't do anti-aliasing, you would have to render the image to a much larger size and then reduce the size to 4000x6000 with PS. Typically 2x works well so you'd need to do it at 8000x12000 to get a nice, smooth but crisp anti-aliasing effect.

Just have FE render your image to that size, if it can. I never used FE but I know XD doesn't let you make big images. You really can't just use Photoshop or PSP to enlarge a small image as the result is VERY blurry and not suitable for printing - or even viewing lol. There is a program called "Genuine Fractals" that SAYS it can enlarge stuff but it is expensive and I've heard not very good.

Once you get your big file as a .bmp, you can sharpen it in Photoshop using the "High Pass" filter. Duplicate the image on top of itself and then apply High Pass filtering (FilterOtherHigh Pass) to the copy layer with a pixel width setting of 0.3 or 0.4. I use 0.3 99% of the time. Use a setting that gives the sharpest edges without showing any or much colors other than greys. Any higher than say 0.6 will blur things and might dork with the colors especially at the edges of shapes. Then, go to Image/Adjustments and select "Desaturate" to make sure the copied layer is totally greyscale and won't mess with the colors of your image. Then Change the Merge Mode of the copied layer to "Soft Light" or "Hard Light". I usually use hard light as it is crisper but it brightens the image more than soft light does. "Vivid Light" works, too. Then do a Layer/Flatten or press Cntl-E and save the sharpened image and you're ready to rock!

One thing you might find is that the print could be much lighter than what you made on your pc. I've done an "Adobe Gamma" calibration to my crt monitor but it is getting old, so it won't go bright enough but if yours is fairly new, it sould work. Or you could spend some $$ and by a Pantone Spyder monitor cal thingie that attaches with suction cups to your monitor and senses it's setup. Then you'd have an ICC file the printer could use to tell his machine how things should look. At least I think that's how the Pantone thing works - I might be full of it - lol. I don't have one - yet. Also, make sure your Color Preference is set to "Adobe 1998" rather than "monitor...something" (don't have PS here at work to check the exact wordings) as this color setting is something the print machines software understands.

Good luck - you will be astounded by how fractals look printed very large and "in your face"! Hope this stuff is right - it's just the way I've done it.

Rick

Message edited on: 03/16/2006 08:47

Message edited on: 03/16/2006 08:48