For a full billboard size the printer will want a simple jpeg that is 3000 x 875 pixels. So from a picture in your house to a billboard it all boils down to how far away from the image you are.
The average billboard that you drive by at 650 feet only requires one pixel per inch for an acceptable image.. And if you're standing in a house looking at a 40"x60" image from a normal viewing distance of 6.5 feet all you really need to see a clean image is 90 ppi..We pixel peepers are used to thinking that we need to have the same resolution in a big image, that we would need in one that was in the computer monitor we created it on. For my purposes, I still shoot for that concentrated image. I want to blow someone away when they put their nose a foot away from a 40"x60" image and see detail that is just plain amazing.
If you're a class A grower the competion is significant. And the time is fast approaching when the plethora of growers and strains (wow) is so confusing and unreliable that consumers are going more towards loyalty and trust in specific growers. So this process is going to weed out a lot of the little guys. If you buy cannabis from your local dispensary the name of the grower is attached. But how many people are going to look up that name on the internet and actually go to your site. One of the best ways of gaining loyalty... is going largely unused other than by the dispensaries before they make an investment in your product. How to get to the buyer... think out of the box.
For example the image above would make a great sales tool. That image could just as easily be a business card. In a stiff card that is easy to write on the back. You don't need to have a card made specifically for every member of your organization. It's much more personal doing business to write your name on the back. And if it's an important contact you can put your personal phone number on the back as well as your personal email address. You can hand them out by the thousands for peanuts and every employee or friend (family) becomes a salesman for you. And the image is one they are very unlikely to toss.
Billboards are expensive. The image above is about 2/3 rds the size and would be much cheaper to put on the side of a van and park it where it can do some good for you... then move to another spot or city... move it around is strategy dictates. Peanuts compared to a full bill board. And you can be more targeted. Park it outside a dispensary you're courting. People would love it. Remember 90% of them don't even know what pot looks like. Other than a brownish colored nug. Show them the beauty inside and blow them away.
When I was growing LSD hydroponically with a couple friends we started out cold at an active dispensary. The first thing I did was to talk the owner into letting me put up a killer image of our product in the entry. Canvas prints are cheap... a 24x36" canvas print are as low as $35. Nothing. They also let me put a couple smaller images inside. In a week our LSD was their top selling product.
But I was away "a lot" and that never works. So I cashed out and went back to adventure as a sea captain.
Flip Nicklin is not only a friend and mentor... he is one of the best photographers National Geographic has. He was named "Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year" for his body of work and for his amazing book... "Among Giants".
We used to think that our pictures were protected by making the images shared so small they had no commercial value. Well, times have changed with recent advances in Artifical Itelligence that can now "predict" the correct pixels for an unbelievably accurate copy.
This ones easy.
It's Topaz Gigapixel vs Photoshop CC.
I don't like subscription programs. I perfer standalones. Even if they're expensive. You own them and I can depend on them in a remote area with no wifi. Or constant work flow interruption of updates that can cause hell with your computer.
Photoshop CC Pros and Cons:
Pros: If you already have Photoshop CC you don't have to buy anything else and it's lightning fast.
Cons: Not too many actually. I like having all I need in one program. Great final results. But no hard copy... just a never ending fee sent to the "cloud".
Topaz Gigapixel Suite Pros and Cons:
Pros: It's hard to find a serious reviewer who doesn't give the edge in quality to Gigapixel A.I.
Cons: Could they have had them in one program? So you start out in Gigapixel A.I. But you actually "need" to buy three programs with Topaz to have the full operational suite... Gigapixel A.I., DeNoise A.I., and Sharpen A.I.
While the interface looks simple in these separate programs... it's not:
You have to select which processing mode to use: Lines, Art & CG, Standard, Low Resolution, and Very Compressed. Choose the wrong one and the fur on a sea lion will turn out looking like moss. And you just can't flip through them and pick the right one. You have to do a full rendering... and the bigger the file the longer it takes. And by time, I mean it could be 5 or 10 minutes. So it's no snap to pick the right mode. (I've just had to work through a few hundred images to know which one will most likely work for me.) So, there's that. A very steep learning curve... with not much help.
And if you make any change while you're rendering (even the smallest touch of a slider... you have to start rendering all over. So it's a major pain that makes Lightroom look like magic (it's so responsive).
Conclusion: For all it's hassles and extremely slow speed Gigapixel A.I. is the ultimate enlargement tool. The quality of the image (well done) is about as comprehensible to me as bit coin. Simply amazing.
If you're already using Photoshop CC... you have what you need.
If you want to "run" Topaz Megapixel A.I. this is the minimum you need. Of course we're going to be using RGB and sending it to the printer in TIFF.
Minimum Requirements:
Processor (CPU)
Intel i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 equivalent or above (3.0 GHz and above) AVX Instructions required
System Memory (RAM)
8GB (16GB and higher is recommended for improved performance) I use 20GB of RAM myself.
Graphics Card (GPU)
OpenGL 3.3 or higher required.
Nvidia GTX 740 or AMD Radeon 5870 (higher series graphics cards recommended)
Dedicated Graphics Memory (VRAM)
2 GB (6GB or more for optimum performance)
Display (Monitor)
Time to step up to an RGB monitor (not sRGB). It wil help eliminate all the quality and communication problems with the printer.
Special Hardware Considerations For Image Apps from Topaz A.I. "And I quote:"
"The specifications listed above are minimum requirements to operate the software. More robust hardware will improve overall performance and processing speed. Your computer's ability to process an image may be affected by the size of the file itself, and a large enough file can exceed the resources of a minimally equipped computer and cause errant behavior. "(Oh yes!)"
Some computers without a dedicated graphics card may function but errant behavior should be expected. A sufficient dedicated graphics card with OpenGL 3.3 and at least 2 GB of VRAM is our minimum requirement to support the software on your device. We do not support Intel HD Graphics 4600 integrated graphics cards or lower in any configuration.
Graphics Drivers
Outdated graphics drivers may result in faulty performance. Drivers should be kept current through the GPU manufacturer's website or provided software. Windows driver updates are rarely current and newer drivers may be available even when Windows says you are up to date. Our programs use the newest optimizations from both Nvidia and AMD whenever possible."
Can you use less than this list recommends... yes. But expect excruciatingly long processing, glitches, lock ups... and just plain hair pulling frustration.
Can any image (800 x 538 i.e.) be enlarged to a crisp 40" x 30" image. Even Flip's dolphin shot (which is perfectly exposed and sharp as a tack) needed a work around to get to this size. It can be done but don't look to Topaz for advice on this. You have to figure it out yourself.(Email me and I'll clue you in.) And some just have too much motion or blurr to clean up at that size; or old images that even lightroom can't clean up the halo or chromatic abberation that's now magnified beyond use.
O.K. So now you have your image all cleaned up, converted to a TIFF file and enlarged to easily and beautifully print up. So how to you send this image to the printer and how do you get back his proof copy. No email (Gmail for example) is capable of sending a 100 MB file that won't potentially choke your computer or the one on the other end. They say anything larger than 25 MB they will automaticly go to google drive. Yes, but that will take just as long to load and be just as wearying to download. I open Gmail and before I start an email I click on Google Drive and import it in the drive itself and create a link in the body of the email I'm sending. Takes as little as 2 minutes to download it on the other end if you do it that way. Is it easy... sure, after you do it a few times. (Be sure to send a watermarked and signed image.) Of course if all this isn't working easily for you... you can simply send them your image as a sensibly sized jpeg.
If you try to send this large a file as an attachment your printer or client will get a bold notice saying that this file is not scanned for viruses. And if that won't put them off.... nothing will. You might even get the same thing with a link... but I tell them not to download it to a program or even their desktop. Download it to a thumb drive or external hard drive and it's bullet proof. As neither will let it in if it is suspect. Me, I do all my micro work in jpeg and let the printer take 5 minutes and make a tiff or CMYK out of it. No hassles. I like it simple and easy.
A custom printer with a 60" machine will send a proof back to you. He'll color match it in RGB to his printer and send you back a proof of what he's going to print. He gets your O.K. and your print is going to press. Find a custom printer who is also a professional photographer and that will be the end of your problems.
P.S. Set your camera for Adobe RGB and you and your printer will be on the same page. What you get back will look like what you sent.
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I still have my first brownie camera and the box it came in. The prints were so small it was ridiculous... but fun. It hooked me. But as I got older and worked my way up to 35mm cameras and finally dslrs, the capabilities just kept increasing. I shot birds in flight with a Nikon 9mp D70 that Flip Nicklin introduced me to. So when I cropped to get a good image it was just about too small to do anything with. Then we stepped up to the Nikon 12mp D90.Then the revolutionary
D7100. I don't photograph wildlife with a tripod. I use a Nikon 70-300 VR lens Before that I used a 400mm fixed lens with a 1.5x multiplier... and even then the crop would hobble me for a large image. What this new technology has given me is access to all those great shots that were just out of reach for commercial large image purposes. I have the wonderful occupation (during this pandemic) of reaching "way back" into my great early images and breathing new life into them. And that's a pure joy.