Billboard Print "too grainy"

[dancook]

I took a photo for a school, it's going to be on a billboard soon - but still I thought it best I blur the kids
https://usedlens.co.uk/full.jpg - 10643 x 2661 image, a middle section crop of a 100MP 'medium format' sensor

I'm told when the artwork is viewed full size the image looks grainy.

Shot at 1/160, ISO 400 - we were in the woods!

Here's a 100% close up at 877x823



Here's a before (left) after (right) running it through topaz denoise on jpg (pureraw doesn't support Hasselblad X2D raws yet)



This 28MP file is far bigger than the 8MP photos others are happy with (you can just imagine the 'downscaling' that occurs when viewing it at a distance/suitable size), I would have thought the original grain was negligible.

Not a complaint, just surprised.

 

[Sangoma]

What size will the print be?
How close will viewers get to it?

From what it seems, it should be fine

 

[gramps]

Billboard size ... who is going to notice the 'grain'?
De-noised version looks fine to me.

 

[dancook]

I'll find out where it is and look it up on google street view.

 

[woof woof]

Golly Dan that does look a bit off for 1/160, ISO 400 even for FF digital but I'd guess more off for MF? I know you know what you're doing but I suppose the question has to be asked anyway... Did you boost the shadows post capture or do anything else a bit unusual? Maybe revisit the file to double check?

 

[dancook]

Golly Dan that does look a bit off for 1/160, ISO 400 even for FF digital but I'd guess more off for MF? I know you know what you're doing but I suppose the question has to be asked anyway... Did you boost the shadows post capture or do anything else a bit unusual? Maybe revisit the file to double check?

It's probable the any noise got boosted inadvertently during processing with exposure increase etc, and yes it probably doesn't correlate to what you'd expect from ISO400. But 100% is an extreme crop.

If I downscaled that image to fill the view of my 32inch widescreen monitor viewed from 12 inches away, even zoomed in to fill the height of the monitor I do not notice noise.

Probably helps when you have sharp in focus faces to look at though

 

[woof woof]

It's probable the any noise got boosted inadvertently during processing with exposure increase etc, and yes it probably doesn't correlate to what you'd expect from ISO400.

But still if I downscaled that image to fill the view of my 32inch widescreen monitor viewed from 12 inches away, even zoomed in to fill the height of the monitor I do not notice noise.

Probably helps when you have sharp in focus faces to look at though

As others have said, will the grain be noticeable? I don't know.

If this was me, just to see if it makes a difference and regardless of if I intended to use a new version or not I may just revisit the file and reprocess it more gently or selectively just out of interest and see if this leads to less grain and then see if I liked the picture as a whole more or less than this current version.

 

[dancook]

As others have said, will the grain be noticeable? I don't know.

If this was me, just to see if it makes a difference and regardless of if I intended to use a new version or not I may just revisit the file and reprocess it more gently or selectively just out of interest and see if this leads to less grain and then see if I liked the picture as a whole more or less than this current version.

Trying to keep me on the straight and narrow? global sharpness was the 'maker of noise' - I thought it might be. The original files sent over were for selection only, with 'photoshop to follow', which is why I didn't do this in the first place.

I turned off global sharpness, masked and sharpened the subject, inverted the mask for denoising the background (because at this stage, why not?)

Thanks for pushing me not to be so lazy