Dimensions for Large Format Printing

[Christopher Gonzalez]

I've been wanting to print out some of my work in a larger format for awhile now, with the thought of the prints being around 60 x 48 inches, but have read in a d'artiste book that when you increase the size of your document by more than 115% there is a noticable decrease in the quality of the printed image. I usually work at around 10 x 6 inches or so at 300dpi and have resized some of my documents to about 60 x 48 inches and the quality didn't appear to diminish at all, but maybe this is because I'm veiwing it on a monitor and not as a print, which doesn't make sense to me so I don't know.

What though is the necessary height, width, and resolution to set with the expection of it being printed out at around 60x48 inches?

[Tom Luca]

Hey Chris I think I might be able to help, when I was into photography I delved in the matter of large format printing and someone online told me about a site that may be helpful to you, now you don't need to order from them just surf and navigate their pages to get some tips. Believe me these guys are pro's. These two I delt with and they are great! the sites are westcoastimaging.com and the other is colorenlargement.com here's some more http://www.imagers.com/poster.html, http://www.largeformatposters.com/Adhesive-Vinyl-Posters.html, http://www.emill.com/bigprinting/printing.html.
The size you can print without 'stretching' the digital file depends on the dpi at which the work is printed. If you have Photoshop or something similar, you can figure out the size for yourself. Just create a 'new' file, and the dimensions of the print (8x10 or such) and the dpi used for your printer (200, 300 and the like) and you should be shown a file size in mbs needed to produce the print you want.

This was spoken from one of the sales rep's from WCI, "Take a look at this FAQ link from our website for average selling prices for Chromira prints. Also there's helpful information about the most cost efficient way to make prints with us.
http://www.westcoastimaging.com/wci/page/info/FAQ/faqchromira.html

We've done a wide variety of work for commercial photographers, landscape photographers and photojournalists, and we would welcome the chance to help you with whatever digital imaging needs you may have. Please let me know if you have any further questions or needs."

Best regards,

Laurie


Laurie Allen
West Coast Imaging
www.westcoastimaging.com
800-799-4576 ext. 17

[DaveyJJ]

I deal with a great place in Toronto and always work at full size of the peice and only at 150dpi. I recently output for a collector in Ottawa an abstract piece 34x48" and it went off (as usual) perfectly at that size and resolution on their large format art printer on a nice Arches paper.

[Christopher Gonzalez]

Laurie - Thanks for providing the links to those sites. They've been very informative. I'm actually going to be getting the prints done at a place here in Milwaukee called Great Big Pictures, a helpful employee who works at Kinkos recommended it and I went there and was impressed with quality of their work.

It seems as though the type of printer used makes a difference aswell in determing what dimensions and resolution to set. I suppose if you set the canvas dimensions at the same size you intend the print to be the resolution that's needed doesn't necessarily have to be 300dpi.

Even when working on a 60x48 inch canvas though in painter at 150 dpi the file size winds up being 248mbs, which is too large a file size for my computer to work effectively with, so I'm probably going to upgrade my memory, work at a size close to the expected printed size, and hope for the best.

I also liked Jin's idea in another thread about resizing the image as you go along in the painting process, working at the intended size of the print in the last stage when you refine everything and put in the details.

If anyone else has experience with enlarging their paintings and knows what resolution and dimensions to set, or what has worked in the past, feel free to post your thoughts here.