UKC

Looking for a bit of advice regarding printing digital photos, as I'm pretty clueless when it comes to camera technology.

I've got a picture on my camera that my other half really likes, and I want to get it printed and framed for her as a gift. From a bit of online searching it seems most of the high-street options (Jessops, Boots etc.) don't afford great results in terms of image quality. I think I'll go with an online printing service (recommendations welcome, also), but I'm not sure how big I can get away with printing it before it starts to get grainy?

The photo is 14 megapixels, taken on a Sony DSC-T99. I used a tripod, so, in my inexperienced eyes, it's pretty sharp. Could anyone hazard a guess at what size I could get this printed at without it starting to get fuzzy? Or am I oversimplifying this, do you need more info?

Cheers for any advice.

In reply to Taurig:

14mp could comfortably print to A4 at magazine quality (300 dpi) for close scrutiny. It is worth remembering that you tend to stand further back from bigger pictures so in reality you could go a lot bigger if it is going on the wall.


Chris

In reply to Taurig:
I've printed 3mp photos up to A3 with acceptable results (better than you'd get from a typical 35mm negative).

In reply to Taurig: 150dpi is fine, giving a print size of 4500/150=30 inches

In reply to Toreador: ahh, the megapixel myth
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm

In reply to Taurig:

Big. Very big.

Easily poster size at that file size...A0 or A1

As Chris says, take visual acuity into account, and it will look good.

Smaller prints will withstand closer scrutiny.

In reply to Mick Ryan - UKC and UKH: indeed..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149973/Huge-100-metre-wide-photogr...

In reply to Taurig:

Photoshop reckons you could print a 14MP image at 76cm x 50cm at standard printer resolution (150dpi)

For a higher-res print (300dpi) it reckons 38cm x 25cm

In reply to Taurig:

Here's a good article about what possible.
http://www.grafphoto.com/articles/printdogma.html

That was written in 2004, I suspect with advances in software/computers he could squeeze a bit more out of it.

Here's a more general bit of info about print sizes :
http://www.bythom.com/printsizes.htm

In reply to Taurig:

I got this photo:
http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/s720x720/282614_101509189192...

printed using these people here:
http://www.zip-posters.co.uk/

The original was a 2.9mb image sent to me via email and as an experiment I had it printed at A3 size onto thin but glossy paper. It cost less than a tenner posted and it's now in a frame in the front room - it looks stunning and gets lots of people asking questions about it.
If you wanted to pay a bit more for better quality paper for example I'm sure you could get outstanding results.

(for anyone who is interested the photo is by Tom Evans and it's of two Argentinian friends of mine on El Cap - leaving the Texas Flake heading for The Boot)

Cheers

E

Wow, thanks for all the replies, looks like I could get it printed a lot bigger than I thought, I was thinking along the lines of a standard kodak print, 5"x7" or whatever that is! Might not go to poster size but something A4 or slightly larger would be ideal.

Cheers

In reply to subalpine:

That's pretty bloody amazing.

I used to drive a HP large format printer, 48 inches across (small fry I know)in the USA for a big company, it would take a variety of media including canvas.

I had a Minolta Dimage 7i...5MB.. at that time and had spent a decade in California taking pics.

I had such fun printing my images on that printer....and also some images from the UKC galleries, I contacted the photographers and got the original files and printed them.

In reply to subalpine:

useful link

In reply to Taurig:
With the rasterbator, you could print it the size of a wall ...

http://download.cnet.com/Rasterbator/3000-2192_4-10771005.html

In reply to Taurig:
these folk are not the cheapest but are among the best
http://www.peak-imaging.co.uk/

In reply to Taurig: The resolution of the sensor on that camera is much higher than the optical resolution of the lens. Hence for a large print the number of pixels on the sensor doesn't matter at all for the end result; I you use interpolation (any method will do) to increase the pixel-count on the original file only the quality of the lens will matter for the outcome.

I haven't used the DSC-T99 so I cannot comment on its optical qualities.

Kevin, those guys look as reasonable as any I have seen, in fact they're all a bit cheaper than I expected. Thanks for the link, I'll probably go with them.

Jonas, your first sentence makes sense, but I don't know if what you say is a good or a bad thing. After that, I'm afraid you've lost me.

In reply to Taurig: try your local sign wrighting/vehicle graphics place, as they generally have good large printers and will soon tell you whats what

In reply to Taurig:


It really depends on the specifics of the image. 14MP shot in RAW format with a top quality lens, used at its optimum settings, with a tripod and no subject movement, then carefully processed to eliminate the optical defects produced by the lens, and then saved as a high quality jpeg will produce an image capable of being printed very large indeed at high quality.

With your camera, the lens itself may just not be especially sharp, especially at the edges of the frame, or may produce optical effects such as chromatic aberration. The jpeg compression may also reduce the image quality in the file. If shot in poor light (or under-exposed), there may be a lot of noise in the image. Maybe the focusing is slightly inaccurate? Ot the subject moved a little? Etc etc... Simply, the number of megapixels probably won't be the "weakest link" which limits image quality of large prints for you.

In reply to Taurig:
We do large format printing, mainly for our photography business but fairly often for people that want stuff printing like canvasses etc.

14mp is a lot. It wasn't very long ago that 10/12mp was Pro range. As has already been mentioned, MP on its own doesnt count for much. Much of the time when going to print we have little idea what camera took the image.

Compression causes the most issues so the bigger the file that comes out the better. I've printed stuff thats been like 1.3mb at A1 (only ever on request of the punter) and the general public can rarely tell whether the image is good or bad. Its ultimately just a crap picture of a dog, that they like for no apparent reason, to them.

Normal people just see a photo rather than pixelation, colour casts and dither. As I think was also mentioned, viewing distance is also important. Ultimately, if you're gonna make an image massive its unlikely you will have it 30cm from your face so a bit of degredation isn't gonna matter anyway.

..do people print at 150dpi? I've never gone below 300dpi regardless of the input.