[w i l l]

Random basic question that relates to the first couple of posts... how do know if I have xp32 or 64? I bought the PC after April 2005 so I assume it is xp64 but is there a way of finding out on the PC?

[Julian]

it will say 64 on the splash screen (black with windows logo) when you start up and probably in control panel - system. very unlikely to be 64 if it was made then I think.

[Boris Ulzibat]

Hey carstenquilitz - thats not a good situation I agree and it really is a complete misunderstanding on your clients part - but as you say what can you do about that!

Personally I would ask him if he would be happy to do a print that size from say a Phase One P45+ digital medium format camera ($35,000) or maybe the Canon 1Ds studio 35mm ($8000) - they seem to work for most of the advertising industry, and guess what - the resolutions are 7216x5412 and 4992x3328 respectively, mmm... good luck and remember the magic word - 'resample'!

Hey! That's what i thought about just yesterday
But the answer as always will be - if you can't do it - someone else can. That's he, who will get the money.

[Julian]

Hey! That's what i thought about just yesterday
But the answer as always will be - if you can't do it - someone else can. That's he, who will get the money.

You are right about the money and I find it is sometimes wise in a situation like this to ask to see some previous work - ie this reference point that they use for their 'must have' high res. renders - and more often than not it will not be up to the standard you assume they want - as you said earlier Boris, the previous guy used scanline and diffuse - if thats their reference point, and thats what they are asking for great! 20,000x20,000 anyone?!!

Also it is good to remember that in a 3D rendering there is just not the detail that you get in a photo - ie there is a point where zooming in further is not going to reveal any more detail regardless of the image resolution - so resampling is quite legitimate.

[w i l l]

it will say 64 on the splash screen (black with windows logo) when you start up and probably in control panel - system. very unlikely to be 64 if it was made then I think.

I just have XP, not 32 or 64. What effect does that have have for rendering?

[Julian]

I just have XP, not 32 or 64. What effect does that have have for rendering?

Well XP is 32bit and comes in two flavours, the major difference being that XP-Pro allows the use of multiple CPU's (dual Xeon for example) whereas XP-Home only allows the use of one CPU. I am not sure if XP Home allows multiple cores within one processor, I suspect it would have to.

Anyway, to answer your question - unless the software application you are using has been specifically written for a 64bit OS (Max9 64bit for example) then you will not gain any advantage by using XP64 - infact you may be worse off as 32bit apps run on a simulated XP32 within XP64 if that makes sense!

hope that helps

[rivoli]

What effect does that have have for rendering?

a 64 bit system can address more memory to a single process, mxcl for example, than a 32 bit one.

[Boris Ulzibat]

Have any of you guys checked out Blow-up from Alien Skin?

http://www.alienskin.com/blowup/index.html

I havent had chance to try it myself but will do at some point. Obviously it claims to be the answer to all our problems but it does appear to do incredibly well with certain types of images, mainly with clean lines etc (which probably puts anyone using maxwell out of the running!) - might be worth a look though

It works just GREAT!
This is an actual size crop of image scaled by BlowUp from 1600x1200 to 3200x2400.

[Julian]

add a bit of sharpen, denoise and film grain...



...depending on the viewing distance you'd probably get away with that no problem

[Q2]

Thanks for the tip. Will try that!

Q!

[Boris Ulzibat]

add a bit of sharpen, denoise and film grain...



...depending on the viewing distance you'd probably get away with that no problem

Yep. The main thing for me in scaling is loosing as few detail as possible - BlowUp appears to handle it good enough.
I tried to show a direct output from Blowup, it adds grain better, i just turned it off.

[w i l l]

It looks like denoise has given it noise.

add a bit of sharpen, denoise and film grain...



...depending on the viewing distance you'd probably get away with that no problem

[Julian]

well, sometimes the best way to disguise irregular noise is to add high quality 'film' noise that responds predictably to the tones, although it should be fairly subtle - this increases the percieved detail and can also be used to help avoid banding in gradients when printing.

[michaelplogue]

Reducing the resolution requirements for poster or billboard prints is all fine and dandy. However, if you need to do large format giclee art prints, then rendering at a lower resolution and blowing it up really dosen't cut it.

[w i l l]

well, sometimes the best way to disguise irregular noise is to add high quality 'film' noise that responds predictably to the tones, although it should be fairly subtle - this increases the percieved detail and can also be used to help avoid banding in gradients when printing.

I found Neat Image software to be quite good, but maybe this is just my amature way.