Print Sizes

AB22 Easy Tiger

AB22 Easy Tiger

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Graeme
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I've been asked by my company to take photographs of some of our people going about their work. The idea is we'll put the pictures on the wall to replace the faded old product posters and help improve morale.

I have an EOS 400D and I shoot in RAW, there'll be very little cropping as I try to use every available pixel. (10.1 Mp)

I'll also have them professionally printed and I can get virtually any size from the printer. What I don't want to do is provide them with poor quality prints.

Does anyone have an idea of the largest decent quality print size I'll get.
 
I would print 44" x 70" depending on ratios etc

Depends on the material you print on - a luster paper has different effect with pixels than say, a glossy.

You could print even larger with canvas.

Remember - ppi and dpi are different. Is it a cropped picture or not. What's the ISO. All of these factors have a MASSIVE effect on the quality of the print.

How close will the person be viewing the picture, whats the purpose / style (is it abstract/noisy/near perfect photo)...

Sorry for the bombardment of questions - these all decipher how you can print :)
 
Give me a shout if you need any help / proofs
 
it depends largely on the PPI of the printer, a pixel doesnt have a defined size until you print it.. most inkjets will print at anything from 240 to 360 ppi but dont confuse that with DPI which is the physical number of dots the printer makes.
As a general guide a high quality A4 print can be made from a 10MP camera, a good quality printer will get you a decent A3 size print, most online print services will offer to give you a huge poster print - they generally will have some serious print technology and good software to extropolate the print size without loss of too much detail.

given the subject matter i wouldnt want anything larger than an A4 staring down at me of my staff... and you'll be fine with that size print :D
 
andyt70 said:
it depends largely on the PPI of the printer, a pixel doesnt have a defined size until you print it.. most inkjets will print at anything from 240 to 360 ppi but dont confuse that with DPI which is the physical number of dots the printer makes.
As a general guide a high quality A4 print can be made from a 10MP camera, a good quality printer will get you a decent A3 size print, most online print services will offer to give you a huge poster print - they generally will have some serious print technology and good software to extropolate the print size without loss of too much detail.

given the subject matter i wouldnt want anything larger than an A4 staring down at me of my staff... and you'll be fine with that size print :D
Click to expand...

Also depends a lot on the material too.

My matt paper will print at 720dpi, whereas the photo gloss will print standard at 1440 or enhanced with the RIP at 2880 .... and it will take it too!!

I've printed pictures from a D200, slightly cropped, onto premium glossy paper (2 pass) at 40" x 70" with great results.
 
As mentioned above size of print and quality comes in with viewing distance. We used to use billboard sheets for packaging sometimes at the factory. The pictures on those can look great when you look at the billboard - up close they are made up from dots the size of garden peas!
 
Thanks for the responses.

I'll be shooting at ISO100 and the printer I'm using is able to handle very high DPI, I'll have to check about viewing distances - that could be the determining factor.
 
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
Thanks for the responses.

I'll be shooting at ISO100 and the printer I'm using is able to handle very high DPI, I'll have to check about viewing distances - that could be the determining factor.
Click to expand...

If it's on the wall, people will rarely stop and study them I guess?

I'd stay safe with a nice sized, framed with 3" mounts 20 x 30 etc :)
 
There is no limit to the size of "decent quality" print you can get from a 400D.

As others have observed, whether or not it looks decent depends on how far away you are when you look at it. The bigger the print, the further away you'll be, so you can get away with lower resolution.

On the Cambridge In Colour web site, there's a resolution calculator. For somebody with 20/20 vision, it suggests:
- 350 ppi when viewing at 25cm
- 175 ppi when viewing at 50cm
- 87 ppi when viewing at 1m
- 18 ppi when viewing at 5m

Your 400D will give you 3888x2592 pixels to play with. So, assuming you have a high-quality image to start with, and a good printer, you can have:
- a 12"x8" print at 324ppi, which will look really sharp even with your nose up to it
- a 24"x16" print at 162ppi, which will look good from a couple of feet away
- a 48"x32" print at 81ppi, which will look good from about 3 or 4 feet back
- you get the idea

Thing is, if you had a 48"x32" print, you wouldn't want to look at it from only 3 or 4 feet away. I guess 10 feet or so would be more reasonable. And from that distance it will look great.

If you get every pixel printed out 1m square, you'll have an image about 3.9km x 2.5km which will look AWESOME from a plane at 35,000 feet. Admittedly it would be a bit tedious putting all the pixels together. And you'd need a big flat space to do it. And it would probably be expensive. Though you could probably get some sort of arts grant for a project like this.
 
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