Enlarging Decals

The 1/48 decals should be about 50% smaller than the 1/32 decals (I think. 48 - 32 = 16 and 16 = 1/2 of 32. It's been a long day and my mind is working slow). If you scan the 1/48 decals, scan them at a resolution about twice what your printer can do. If you have a 600 dpi printer, scan them at about 1200 dpi. That way when you print them larger the pixilation won't be as bad.

Thanks, Music.

I'll give it a shot.

Being an old printer I have picked up a lot of things along the way and some of it is good. To figure out a percentage enlargement or reduction of a photograph (or decal) in this case you need to figure out what size is the finished size and the original size of the photo. Divide the finished size into the original size and you will get the percentage reduction or enlargement.

For instance here is a reduction:

a 2 inch photo down to 1 inch. 1 inch (finished sized) divided by 2 inches (original size) equals 0.5 or 50% reduction.

5 inch photo down to 3 inch. 3 divided by 5 equals 0.6 or 60%

5 11/32 inch to 2 13/16 inch. 2.8125 (finished size) divided by 5.34375 (original size) equals 0.52631578947368421052631578947368 or 53%

Enlargement: 4 inch to 5 inch. 5 (finished size) divided by 4 (original size) equals 1.25 or 125%

In printing a decal a study by Epson figured out that at 224 dots per inch (dpi) and above the eye cannot see the dots anymore. So I usually use 300 dpi for printing. That keeps the art file small and printing faster. I'm sure the smaller file also takes less time for the computer to process.

QUOTE: In printing a decal a study by Epson figured out that at 224 dots per inch (dpi) and above the eye cannot see the dots anymore. So I usually use 300 dpi for printing. That keeps the art file small and printing faster. I'm sure the smaller file also takes less time for the computer to process.

That's interesting ... I have wondered about that before. I work with aerial photographs a lot, and we frequently scan them and include all or part in engineering drawings.

While I think it's true that the eye cannot see the dots anymore, I'm not sure I agree with the logic completely. I think that the eye can perceive the EFFECT of the dots in that diagonal lines are not as sharp at, say, 300 dpi as they are at, say, 600 dpi simply because the offset between the pixels is smaller at 600.

Also keep in mind that the type of printer has a large affect on the final print job. An ink jet tends to bleed slightly on anything except plastic, whereas a laser printer doesn't have that problem. The result being that at any given resolution, 300 dpi, 600 dpi, etc. a laser printer is going to look slightly sharper. We have a 600 dpi large-format ink jet plotter as well as several other ink jet printers and some lasers. If I print the same file on the plotter and a laser (at the same resolution) the laser will look crisper.

Oh, dots can be seen at 300 dpi. But you have to have a high-powered magnifier and get very close to see them. Dots will always be there unless you are using a Gravure press. But at a normal viewing distance to a normal person the dot will not be seen. A lot of old decals were printed at 80 dpi because the silk screen inks were to thick to print on a smaller screen. If the silk screen ink was thinned too much then the opacity of the decal would suffer.

So my eyes do not see dots at a normal viewing distance of a fine art magazine coated paper stock with lots of clay additive in the paper. The fine arts magazine screen is 180 dpi. Mr. Epson and his company cannot see dots at 224 dpi. MusicCity cannot see dots after 600 dpi. YMWV.