enlargements

[Carter Simcoe]

got some great advice to my last printing questions, so…

..say I want to send a file off for a really big print…  

I’m assuming most of these printers are going to be capable of handling files with resolutions much greater than 300dpi, and that the actual person/group doing the print can advise me on what they would like to see in that regard.  

I know to blow it up in photoshop using bicubic smoothing, but exactly how will the factors of resolution and original file size work to determine exactly how big I can go while doing this?  Guessing noise reduction in post processing will play a role here as well, but lets try to keep it relatively straight-forward (at least to start with).

Thank, ya’ll.

[Eric DeWitt]

I’m not sure that i have a specific answer for you, but i can tell you what i have experienced with large format prints.

[Carter Simcoe]

Interesting.

[Richard Bernabe]

Carter,

There are no fast and hard rules regarding this.

Your personal taste will be the biggest factor as will the viewing distance of the print. 35mm images can (and are) enlarged to billboard size and look great as we are driving down the highway, but get any closer than 20 feet and they look horrible.

[Buzz Bryson]

Carter,

If the lab is pretty good, you’d be better off to send an unaltered file, and let them do any uprezzing, color correction, sharpening, etc.

[Author]

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