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Love it Norman,
This conundrum is reminding me of a 'study' I did whilst working as an advertising photographer for Art Director John Merriman of Collett Dickenson Pearce Advertising in London on an early 80's Silk Cut cigarette campaign.
The campaign of billboards and magazine spreads used an incredibly complex optical process called "Blocpix".
Here's a piece on Ed Manning:
[ https://www.atariarchives.org/artist/sec17.php ]
BLOCKPIXâ„¢ of Ralph Nader by Ed Manning
The process was used to obscure - or, effectively, in modern terms - to pixelate an image - this work pre dated widespread use of computers in imaging. It used an nbetirely optical process originally conceived by a scientist at Bell Labs named Leon Harmon, our work was done by Ed Manning, [quite a boffin - friend of Edwin Land & Robert Oppenheimer], who was based in Connecticut.
Once printed and viewed from "the right" distance, my original image resolved itself to the viewer.
Lucky us, what would perhaps now take minutes in Photoshop necessitated a few trips to Connecticut.
The beauty of Ed's process, though, was that you could slightly adjust the bloc grid position whilst viewing the image live on what was effectively a small back projection screen. He had also worked out how to multiply the grid by 4 using, as I recall, micro adjustment, masks and multiple exposure.
In practice, the original 35mm slide was projected from a "gnome" slide projector onto his secret Blcopix device and captured onto film on the other side. The whole thing took place in a church crypt, exploiting the stability of its solid stone floor.
We are kinda talking about the opposite of the OP's issue.
So, why am I writing this -
Well, we worked out that at "normal" viewing distances, a 48 sheet billboard poster needed just about the same number of pixels across the width as a magazine spread. Our calculation was a bit less scientific, we held the magazine at arms length whilst looking at a poster from normal viewing distance, they were 'the same size' [to the eye]. Kinda similar to your 50" TV being much the same "size" as a multiplex cinema screen.
Ah the heady 80's in advertising1
I hope this helps

thanks
neil barstow, colourmanagement.net :: adobe forum volunteer
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