A quick question for the experts?

Spine60 · Dec 3, 2009

How large can a photo taken with a 7 mega pixel camera, I believe it is a panasonic lumix, be blown up to without losing much detail? Thanks, Greg

Big Mike · Dec 3, 2009

Welcome to the forum.

without losing much detail?

This means different things to different people. What's acceptable to you, might not be acceptable to someone else or vice versa.

When you enlarge an image, not only is the resolution an issue, but the quality of the image will come into play because the any deficiencies will be enlarged as well. So if the image isn't very sharp and in focus, that will be more apparent when it's larger...and so on.

Technically, you can go as large as you want....obviously, you loose quality/clarity as you go larger, but you also need to consider the viewing distance. Billboards don't look so good when you are standing right next to them, but from 50 yards away, they look just fine.

Spine60 · Dec 3, 2009

Thanks Mike, I have a picture of a football field taken from a plane. My wife wants to blow it up for a coaches gift. I was just wondering if there was a break point were it goes downhill as far as quality? I was thinking about an 11x14 and didn't know how it would look. It looks great at 8x10.

KmH · Dec 3, 2009

Images can be upsized with software.

What are the pixel dimensions of the image and what format was it captured in? JPEG? RAW? If it's at least 1400 pixels by 1100 pixels you'll probably be ok but 2400 pixels by 220 pixels would be better.

At 8x10 the image aspect ratio is 5:4. An 11x14 is a different aspect ratio, so the image will need to be cropped which means loosing some pixels.