Hook Portrait (My digital restoration)

Like Samohtep, I do some work for a print shop, but we do specialise in fine art printing. Generally, we would advise 300dpi as the minimum, but you also have to remember that a print of that size would sell in an art gallery for $200-300, depending on the reputation of the artist. People spending that kind of money have the right to expect an excellent reproduction.

It doesn't look like your print is heavy on sharp, fine detail, so you've probably gotten away with the lower resolution. :thumbsup

And nice work btw! :)
 
The cellphone quality pics dont really do the painting any justice - but it was never meant to be super fine detail at super close inspection anyway - just enough so that it looks like an older painting on a thick canvas.

This is about at sharp as the detail gets:
Screen Shot 2013-11-19 at 11.15.25 AM.png


And thank you guys for all the compliments!
 
It looks great. To reiterate what others have said, 300dpi is the gold standard for printing. You can't really go wrong with 300dpi, unless you are doing something absolutely huge. Keep up the good work!
 
tk5378 said:
It looks great. To reiterate what others have said, 300dpi is the gold standard for printing. You can't really go wrong with 300dpi, unless you are doing something absolutely huge. Keep up the good work!
Click to expand...


Yep. Keep it 300dpi. Now you can always lower the dpi for certain prints, but don't go less than 150 for photos. I've been in the wide-format printing market quite a while doing everything from photos to signs... and I've done a few unconventional things as well.

I've taken 4x6 photos, scanned them at 300-600 dpi, cropped them full size at 150 and printed them... that's at a 40"x60", with no... I mean NO pixilation at all. But it's the "garbage-in-garbage-out" rule... some things just can't be helped.

Samohtep is right as well. Certain media is very forgiving... I print adhesive vinyl and banner vinyl all day and it changes from one to the other. Whereas he prints 100, I usually do 72 unless it's highly detailed then I do my normal 150.


As far as the work goes, amazing job! I've done restorations a-plenty, but never to this extreme. I love seeing how passionate people are about items, it really shows in this. Great work!
 
I'm definitely interested, it's going to look great next to the Hook. What size was the original framed picture in the movie?
 
Logan Cade said:
I'm definitely interested, it's going to look great next to the Hook. What size was the original framed picture in the movie?
Click to expand...

I don't recall the original size of the portrait but through my methods I made mine roughly 16.5" x 21" (because of the size of frame I have). It's plenty big for my purposes - I'm pretty sure the original was bigger, but I'm a little afraid of tiling too many of the sheets I print out which might create noticeable seams. At the moment my method of transferring it to a canvas is to print it on 11 x 17 paper and use gel to transfer it.

If you guys have some ideas about what sizes you might want - I can see what I can do.
 
Mooniteman said:
Im just printing it out on 11x17 and then tiling it to make a larger image. 17 x 21.5 is about how big my finished portrait is.
Click to expand...

What could be cool is to print it out on water slide paper. Print out the piece in sections then soak it in water and slide it on to a white stretched canvas. It will bind to the canvas texture and look like it was painted on the canvas. And with water slide paper, the sections will look seamless when put up against eachother. Then get some acrylic gloss or semi gloss varnish and brush it on with a brush creating brushstroke textures on top to give it that painted look. When that dries it should tie it all together and look like a real painting on a canvas.
 
Moviefreak said:
What could be cool is to print it out on water slide paper. Print out the piece in sections then soak it in water and slide it on to a white stretched canvas. It will bind to the canvas texture and look like it was painted on the canvas. And with water slide paper, the sections will look seamless when put up against eachother. Then get some acrylic gloss or semi gloss varnish and brush it on with a brush creating brushstroke textures on top to give it that painted look. When that dries it should tie it all together and look like a real painting on a canvas.
Click to expand...

Thats pretty much what I did but with thicker gel- in my experience water slide paper is not easy to get air bubbles out of and tears very easily - but a great idea!
 
Mooniteman said:
Thats pretty much what I did but with thicker gel- in my experience water slide paper is not easy to get air bubbles out of and tears very easily - but a great idea!
Click to expand...

I had great success with Papilio.com and their clear water slide paper. They sell this fixative on the site that comes in a spray can.
It is flexible so it doesn't dry then crack when it bends. It has a main function to keep the ink locked down when dipping in water, but it creates a thick coat that prevents it from tearing when applying. Since it is thick, you can keep lifting and repositioning until you work bubbles out.
But the main trick to prevent the bubbles is to wet the surface COMPLETELY. Soak it. Then slide the decal off in the water. Then keep lifting and dipping in the water to get it good and wet. Then lay it on the wet surface. Then you just slide it around into position and gently use a soft cloth toy squeegee the water out from underneath.
I used these decals for work daily and never had issues with bubbles.
 
Moviefreak said:
I had great success with Papilio.com and their clear water slide paper. They sell this fixative on the site that comes in a spray can.
It is flexible so it doesn't dry then crack when it bends. It has a main function to keep the ink locked down when dipping in water, but it creates a thick coat that prevents it from tearing when applying. Since it is thick, you can keep lifting and repositioning until you work bubbles out.
But the main trick to prevent the bubbles is to wet the surface COMPLETELY. Soak it. Then slide the decal off in the water. Then keep lifting and dipping in the water to get it good and wet. Then lay it on the wet surface. Then you just slide it around into position and gently use a soft cloth toy squeegee the water out from underneath.
I used these decals for work daily and never had issues with bubbles.
Click to expand...


First off - please excuse my rather short and arrogant message - I was in a rush and I come across like a *****. Sorry about that!

My experience with water slide paper is honestly limited to model planes and the like and that never turned out well. But that really intrigues me - I honestly wonder how hard it would be to utilize this for some convincing stained glass?

This is very cool - your confidence in this is a big sell - so I'm gonna pick up some sheets and give it a go!
 
Mooniteman said:
First off - please excuse my rather short and arrogant message - I was in a rush and I come across like a *****. Sorry about that!

My experience with water slide paper is honestly limited to model planes and the like and that never turned out well. But that really intrigues me - I honestly wonder how hard it would be to utilize this for some convincing stained glass?

This is very cool - your confidence in this is a big sell - so I'm gonna pick up some sheets and give it a go!
Click to expand...
Dude.... You didn't come across that way at all. Don't sweat it ;)
As far as stain glass it wouldn't work well. The clear water slide needs a white background for the color to look saturated. A canvas would look good as it is white, but you can't print white ink, so anything white is actually clear and the background would be your white color. Hope that makes sense :lol
But it really is a great tool to use outside of model decaling.
 
Moviefreak said:
Dude.... You didn't come across that way at all. Don't sweat it ;)
As far as stain glass it wouldn't work well. The clear water slide needs a white background for the color to look saturated. A canvas would look good as it is white, but you can't print white ink, so anything white is actually clear and the background would be your white color. Hope that makes sense :lol
But it really is a great tool to use outside of model decaling.
Click to expand...

Well I'm glad to hear it! I need to try this water slide stuff!

And I keep meaning to start an interest list on this, but I never settled on a size for it.
 
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