low res image to high res?

[Travis Munroe]

I received some low resolution images from an architect for a property I am selling. I need to blow this up to 4'x4' on a vinyl banner to hang on the fence as the property is under construction.
The architect is confusing me beyond belief saying that he needs to re do everything and run a machine overnight to get a high resolution image.

Surely there is an easier way ????

Thanks in advance!

[FlameOn]

Spoiler!

Joking aside, it might take some time to recompress to a higher resolution depending on the size of the job, size of the poster and the compression format used.

[SebC]

Sure, you could just upscale the file. It'll look awful.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

I received some low resolution images from an architect for a property I am selling. I need to blow this up to 4'x4' on a vinyl banner to hang on the fence as the property is under construction.
The architect is confusing me beyond belief saying that he needs to re do everything and run a machine overnight to get a high resolution image.

Surely there is an easier way ????

Thanks in advance!

Generally upscaling images is a bad idea, they just don't scale up that well. But it varies by application. For instance most billboards that are being viewed at a distance are actually produced at pretty low resolution. So if your 4' x 4' banner is far enough way from the viewer, you might just be able to upscale the image in photoshop.

As for your architect, yeah he probably has to run his machine overnight to render out the image from his 3D modelling software. 3D rendering is pretty CPU intensive, it's why places like Pixar will have rooms & rooms of "rendering farms" which are just computers running the 3D renders.

Typically we get an low res preview from architectural rendering companies which is used for proofing, and once the final design is approved the full res render will come a week or two later.

[photon]

Since you say it's for a place under construction, I'm assuming they're renders and not photos?

In which case what he's saying makes sense; when you render an image from a building that exist in the computer, that can take a long time and scales significantly with the size of the image. Doubling the resolution quadruples the number of pixels so would quadruple the render time (roughly anyway, I'm sure there's optimizations and stuff that impacts this).

For a 4'x4' banner you probably want 100dpi or 150dpi or so, lets go with 100. 48" x 48" at 100dpi is an image of 4800 x 4800. 7200 x 7200 for 150dpi.

If the image he gave you was say 1000 x 1000, and the new ones are 4800 x 4800 or 7200 x 7200 then it could take either 23 times longer or 52 times longer to render those compared to the 1000 x 1000.

The one thing you could find out is what DPI he's rendering to. If you told him it was for print he may be rendering at 300dpi or 600dpi or even more. For a 4'x4' banner you probably don't need that high a dpi because it'll probably be viewed from quite a distance. You only need 300dpi if you are looking at it from six inches away.

So he may be able to do it faster if he does it for 100dpi or 150dpi (or find out what the sign maker recommends as a source image dpi).

[photon]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

So if your 4' x 4' banner is far enough way from the viewer, you might just be able to upscale the image in photoshop.

Maybe, depending on the kind of image it is too. If it were me though I'd go with the re-render to be safe, nothing screams bush league like a low resolution image. At least to me anyway.

[Travis Munroe]

Thank you for clarifying - I believe he is pushing them to 300 dpi

[To Be Quite Honest]

When desperate I have used a pixel design to mask a picture. Not sure that it would work in this example however.

[Mass_nerder]

I'm assuming he's either doing the project on Revit, which has a built in rendering feature, or doing a separate rendering on Rhino.
I know from experience that running a full, presentation quality (300dpi from what I remember...don't feel like opening Revit to check) rendering of an entire building (you can adjust the rendering window size), can take 5-6 hours.
I haven't used Rhino to produce any renderings, but I would assume it would take about the same time.

[normtwofinger]

300 ppi is overkill for a 4'x4'.