Thanks to all who responded. I've had a chance to look at the picture they will use at the service. It's the shot I've been asked to duplicate. Shot on a Mavica at 640 by 480, taken to some printing service, and a poor quality 8x10 is the result. My 5x7 looks much better, and I could do a better 8x10 with regard to resolution issues.
I enlarged 10x with GF, cropped, then stepped down to a 300 dpi 5x7 in 10 percent steps, cloning out artifacts, sharpening, and adding noise along the way. The result is soft, but surprisingly usable. No pixillation is evident on my print.
The only problem I'm now having is matching color to the original print, a problem made difficult due to lack of any calibration outside of Adobe Gamma. I can get a very good match on my lowly Lexmark Z55 (a printer I love), but the HP 5500 is the one I must print with due to a Wilhelm rating of 70 years. This is the one shot of my sister-in-law that everyone is likely to keep and frame.
No matter how I set up to print to the HP, or how severe the adjustment layers (now up to 4), that little toad of a printer gives me more or less the same results. I've turned off Color Management, changed Intent, changed color spaces, and it keeps giving me an overly yellow skin tone and a too-light picture. 30 test prints so far, still off. I nailed colors with the Lexmark on the 3rd test print.
I _hate_ color matching, and there's no way I'm gonna fork out the 100's of dollars they say you need to spend to get this under control.
This hobby is fun? HAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!
-Lon
