Hi everyone.

I'm back.  I have Vue 5 I and I'm looking for suggestions on tweaking the render settings to get the best possible image I can, but not piss off Vue. 

This would be for print quality as in making a poster or using it on a T-Shirt. 

Thoughts?

It's gonna have to be huge as a 12"x12" 150 dpi render[average t-shirt size and print res] is going to be 1800x1800 pivels, and if you want to go for real hi quality I often doube to 3600x3600 and reduce in PhotoShop for print final image. With full everything if you have the power/time....LOL...seems excessive but is often worth the wait on a looooong render.

I can always let it run overnight easily.  I have a pretty solid system.

Do you tweak any of the anti-aliasing options?

For print or customer I always AA to the Max

I usually obtain better quality by rendering 4 times larger than final size WITHOUT antialiasing, then resize down 4 times in Photoshop (Photoshop built-in options can do it well, plugins like Genuine Fractals can do it even better).

Don't think that rendering 4 times larger takes much more time: since you are rendering without AA, the render times are fast - I am of the impression that actually sometimes they may be even faster.

Okay, thanks for the feedback.

When you render larger and then reduce down in post production, is there any degradation of the image?

Quote - Okay, thanks for the feedback.

When you render larger and then reduce down in post production, is there any degradation of the image?

What most rendering software does when antialiasing, is in fact a process that simulates the effect of resampling, that is: interpolation.

Rendering software does that taking into account several aspects of the image, such as the contrast, edges, et c. - but what it does, it must do starting from the final image size, and ending up with the same final image size.

The advantage of doing the interpolation starting from a rendered image that is 4 times larger than the final size, is that the interpolating software (Photoshop, or PSP, or whatever you use) has 4 times more the resolution and data to work on. The advantage of doing the interpolation on an amount of pixel resolution that is 4 times larger, is immediately understandeable

The correct way of doing the resize is to do it only once. It is obvious that the more you process an image, the more you get distant from the original data. if you process the image just once in Photoshop, you'll end up with a very good final result. The rendering software itself, when antialiasing, processes the image, but it does starting from a smaller resolution.

In Photoshop CS2, I use the "bicubic sharper" as resampling (=interpolating) method. I choose it because it gives back some of the finer details that are usually lost when interpolating or antialiasing. This also saves from the necessity of performing an extra sharpening process - which would add another processing step to the final image.

Interpolation plugins such as Fred Miranda's or Genuine Fractals can do an even better job - but they're not freeware. You don't have to spend necessarily much money anyway - there is software that is free or almost, and offers decent interpolation algorhythms such as Lanczos. You have to experiment and find out the solution that you like better, and adapts better to your requirements. Just keep in mind this - process the image only once - and you'll be safe, quality-wise.

Wow!  Okay, Orio, thanks so very much for all of that information.  I will look into testing this.  I have Photoshop CS2.

You're up in Northern Italy, yes?  My friend, Matteo is from Milan.  My family comes from the south, in Naples. 

Yes, correct Elektra. Where I live is about 100 kms from Milan. I lived there four years when I went to college.

My friend told me that Lake Cuomo, I hope I am spelling it correctly, it one of the prettiest places to visit there.

I hope to go with either him or one of my cousin's.  My Italian is not so good.    But the one of the local colleges started to offer Italian, so, I may sign up for it.  See how well I do.

Thanks again for the good tips on final render everyone.  If anyone else has more ideas, I am willing to hear them.

It's Lago di Como  :-)

It's the preferred choice of George Clooney - he bought a house there.

Lots of nice elegant old villas, nice views, but a bit sad overall for me, maybe because of the mountains so near. I prefer the Lago di Garda. It's larger, really looks like teh sea in some places, it's less elitist, and it has Sirmione with the castle and the Roman ruins of the (so called) villa of Catullus, which are So beautiful. And lots of olives and oleanders, like if it was on the sea.

Quote - It's Lago di Como  :-)

It's the preferred choice of George Clooney - he bought a house there.

Lots of nice elegant old villas, nice views, but a bit sad overall for me, maybe because of the mountains so near. I prefer the Lago di Garda. It's larger, really looks like teh sea in some places, it's less elitist, and it has Sirmione with the castle and the Roman ruins of the (so called) villa of Catullus, which are So beautiful. And lots of olives and oleanders, like if it was on the sea.

Lago di Garda sounds very lovely.  Do you have any links to any pictures from there?  Any sites? 

George Clooney?  No kidding?  Heh, well, he did pick Italy; which shows some good taste, yes?