What size picture needed for very large print?

[nsa]

I'll start by saying I know little about photography, so if I've got some of the terms wrong...

I want to have a very high quality image printed, framed, and put on my wall. I'm thinking about something 1m or 1.5m high/wide. I doubt the standard 2-3mb picture coming out of my camera is going to cut it, so how many megabytes or pixels do I need to be able to have a high definition image suitable for lambda/c-type printing?

[Simpo Two]

I'm not sure what lambda/c-type printing is but for starting point, a 10Mp camera has about 3,870px on the long side. Stretch those over 1.5m (59") and you have 66dpi - not exactly 'high definition'. However to double that resolution, you need 40Mp - well off the scale for DSLRs and into medium-format land. Another option is to upscale but you can't get any extra detail, it merely interpolates.

What's your budget...?

[nsa]

I'm prepared to spend a few hundred on the print if it's the best available quality. The alternative is to buy a print by a famous artist, and these are >£1,000. I quite like the idea of choosing my own image though.

Most of the large format prints I've seen for sale are listed as Lambda/C-Type/Fuji-Flex.

http://www.theprintspace.co.uk/digital-c-type-prin...

[Simpo Two]

Ah right, I thought you wanted to buy a camera

Sorry, I can't tell you where to get fine art prints from; hopefully someone else can. But is it going to say how many megapixels went into it?

[LongQ]

2 or 3 Mb may indeed not be enough even with upscaling BUT it does rather depend on whast the images is, how much detail it contains and needs to retian and what the viewing distance is typically doing to be.

Simpos ca;lcualtion above suggesting 66ppi is a bit marginal cetainly but if you could get the mage upscaled to twice that AND didn't need to have the option to pick out fine detail it might work.

For recommendation you could have a look at some of the more informative printer web sites. I think you will find that Peak Imaging offere a table of optimal image file size to output size sizes possible on their web site and also Whitewall in Germany have something similar as I recall. Many ohther will do so too - Photobox perhaps another good source of information.

I would check a few and compare for consistency of advice.

Edited by LongQ on Saturday 26th November 01:14

[nsa]

Thanks. I found a print shop in London and will ask them what I need on Monday.

http://www.theprintspace.co.uk/photographic-print-...

[RobDickinson]

I've some 1.2m wide prints and printed A1 a lot.

120-150dpi is a minimum that you can get away with , so 5000px long. (tho it does depend on viewing distance!)

But pixel count is only the beginning. A good sharp shot to start with and good processing/sharpening can help a lot.

[K12beano]

A single shot won't have a lot of pixels compared to the output you might want.



But stitch yourself together a panorama and you can easily get the increase in detail for a 1-1.5m wide shot!

[HoHoHo]

For photographic reproduction we require a minimum of 72dpi at full size.

That said, we printed some large images onto fabric recently and they were supplied at 30dpi at full size and they looked great, no pixelation or issues of any kind. That said, fabric helps to mask any imperfections, Opaljet or photopaper isn't quite so forgiving.

It's the image on the right in this picture (it's the best picture I have of it and it's also a computer generated image)


Positive Images Design & Exhibitions Ltd by Positive Images Design & Exhibitions, on Flickr

Edited by HoHoHo on Saturday 26th November 13:34

[nsa]

K12beano said:

A single shot won't have a lot of pixels compared to the output you might want.



But stitch yourself together a panorama and you can easily get the increase in detail for a 1-1.5m wide shot!

I found a group on Flickr called Very Very Large Photographs or something like that, and I think they stitch together shots to get 20mb images.

[LongQ]

nsa said:

I found a group on Flickr called Very Very Large Photographs or something like that, and I think they stitch together shots to get 20mb images.

These days very very large images are probably very large image stitched together to produce 20Gb images rather than 20Mb.

There are some remarkable techniques out there.

[jr502]

One of my favourite pics from my recent trip to Poland was from some shots stitched together giving a 40mp image. Nice being able to have so much detail, like imagining owning a phase one

[Simpo Two]

Pah, I'm going to print out Google Earth