LARGE photos?

[Desert_Signs]

I have a customer that is looking for a certain vintage look photo to blow up to ~100"h x 86"w.

I admit, I'm terrible with figuring out if a photo will look 'good' at a certain size. I can find tons of photos that the customer likes, but without knowing what a certain size will 'blow up' to, I'm hesitant to start willy nilly buying photos.

How can I figure this out?

 

[TXFB.INS]

Put the logo in the design program and then scale it to the intended size.

when you zoom in you will see what the pixels will do and what you see on the screen is what you will get.

 

[J Hill Designs]

75-100 dpi should be fine at full size (so photo would need to be 6450 x 7200 minimum

this is a baseline standard. there are a few 'upscale' type softwares/plugins that would basically achieve a nice result with a smaller photo

it also depends on the content of the photo.

 

[oksigns]

I used to do this all the time at our smaller shop.

You will want to ask the customer what is the intended viewing distance for this. Most of the time, they treat the large prints as a photo in the hand; to which I would tell them we would need the best source photo for duplication. I stick with as close to 300 dpi as possible and always resample when enlarging. It is all about that source photo and scan quality!

EDIT: get in to the habit of looking at the file first, going through some of the motions scaling it up before you tell them anything. We treated these things like doctor visits because sometimes we had bad news for them to which we educated and most of the time got a different photo to enlarge

 

[Desert_Signs]

I used to do this all the time at our smaller shop.

You will want to ask the customer what is the intended viewing distance for this. Most of the time, they treat the large prints as a photo in the hand; to which I would tell them we would need the best source photo for duplication. I stick with as close to 300 dpi as possible and always resample when enlarging. It is all about that source photo and scan quality!

EDIT: get in to the habit of looking at the file first, going through some of the motions scaling it up before you tell them anything. We treated these things like doctor visits because sometimes we had bad news for them to which we educated and most of the time got a different photo to enlarge

The thing is, this is going on the wall of a bathroom, right in front of the urinals. People will literally be inches away from it.

As far as the photo - We haven't found one yet. And that's the 'rub'. All the stock photos sites give you a reduced quality image and I don't want to go through and buy 10 photos, just to find out they don't work. That's why I'm trying to figure out what size it needs to be, ahead of time. I understand scaling it if I had the actual photo in hand....

 

[oksigns]

If you have Photoshop, then you can increase the image size by resampling in bicubic mode while maintaining 300 dpi and you should come out okay as long as the source image is atleast ~24" by ~24" in dimension. Those requirements are based on Getty Images and Shutterstock offerings.

I created a giant 2 panel perf using enlarged images and they came out awesome. My workflow is with adobe so your mileage may vary.

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

60 - 72 dpi is still ok for close viewing as long as the original file wasn't scaled up to get to that point. For your best bet you might want get a photo at 21mp. At 72dpi you can get an image that is 13' x 16' at 150dpi the image is roughly half that size or nearly the size you need.

There are stock sites out there that have ultra high res photos, but they are typically costly at around $45 - $95/ea image.

 

[Desert_Signs]

60 - 72 dpi is still ok for close viewing as long as the original file wasn't scaled up to get to that point. For your best bet you might want get a photo at 21mp. At 72dpi you can get an image that is 13' x 16' at 150dpi the image is roughly half that size or nearly the size you need.

There are stock sites out there that have ultra high res photos, but they are typically costly at around $45 - $95/ea image.

OK, showing my ignorance here. None of the sites I've been looking at say the mp size or dpi.

How do I know? I think at this point, the customer wouldn't mind paying $100 for the picture, as long as it's the right one.

 

[oksigns]

OK, showing my ignorance here. None of the sites I've been looking at say the mp size or dpi.

How do I know? I think at this point, the customer wouldn't mind paying $100 for the picture, as long as it's the right one.

for example, on getty images:

you can view inches as well, but it's pretty standard on these sites to see what the dimensions/resolution are

 

[bob]

I used to do this all the time at our smaller shop.

You will want to ask the customer what is the intended viewing distance for this. Most of the time, they treat the large prints as a photo in the hand; to which I would tell them we would need the best source photo for duplication. I stick with as close to 300 dpi as possible and always resample when enlarging. ...

Nonsense. Of course you want the largest, highest resolution, image with which to begin but once imported and enlarged then even 150dpi is overkill. The average human eye is unable to detect a difference of 1 part in 100 let alone 1 part in 150. Virtually all half-tones seen in high quality printing are 130 line screens. Moreover a 150dpi image is a nice fit for printing at 720dpi. You want the printer resolution to be at least four times the image resolution which yields ~65,535 color possibilities for each image pixel.

There are a number of proprietary packages that will enlarge bitmaps to any size with absolutely no pixelization. I use PhotoZoom, there are others.

 

[J Hill Designs]

There are a number of proprietary packages that will enlarge bitmaps to any size with absolutely no pixelization. I use PhotoZoom, there are others.

I beg to differ

enlarge this to 72 dpi for a 30 foot wall and show me zero pixelation

 

[bob]

I beg to differ

enlarge this to 72 dpi for a 30 foot wall and show me zero pixelation

The work of a moment. I never said that it would be as sharp or there would be no pixel bloom [which is merely a byproduct of a lack of sharpness in the original], I said there would be no pixelization, which there absolutely positively will not be. When you enlarge a bitmap, any flaws or lack of definition in the original get blown up as well.

Pixelization occurs when enlargement is achieved merely by making each pixel larger. A rather primitive approach. The mechanisms that enlarge without doing that are legion. These mechanisms, most all of the variations of a spline fit, add pixels whose characteristics are interpolated from the original and surrounding pixels. The major problem, one of them, is edge determination. When does something and and something else begin? Uncertainty here causes pixel bloom. An algorithm can take a good guess at an edge but in reality, it's a differentiation that occurs in the brain of the observer and is not inherent in the image.

Still, enlarging your sample is perfectly possible and reasonable.