How big could I get a D90 photo printed?

[eric-holmes]

I had a lady email me and ask what the largest size of a photo I could have printed. Millers will print a 30x40 but it says it isn't recommended due to my pixel count I guess. I thought for sure that I could get it that big.

Photo dimensions...
4288x2848 Pixels
300 PPI

 

[Inst!nct]

Uhhhhhh generally as long as you are around 250 dpi you should be set.

 

[eric-holmes]

I am pretty sure PPI and DPI are two different things. DPI refers to printing itself, right?

 

[Inst!nct]

I am pretty sure PPI and DPI are two different things. DPI refers to printing itself, right?

Yes, that is true, i just confused myself . And 30x40 is pretty huge to be honest, next lowest would probably work with your pixels, I've only printed off something once and it worked out fine but was a bit of a guess.

 

[eric-holmes]

Anyone else have experience with this?

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

You can go as low as 150, for something that large, and at the proper viewing distance...

This was asked like twice last week, do a search, KMH posted tables and more info.

 

[eric-holmes]

I have done some google searches and this guy pretty much says that you can't even print that size photo with a 21MP camera.

How Big Can I Print by Thom Hogan

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Search this forum.

 

[Josh66]

I've printed 20x20 from 350D files, which are smaller than yours, and they looked fine.

20x30 would definitely be doable, but I don't know about bigger than that... How much is a 30x40 at Millers?

It might be worth a test print just to see what it looks like, if it's cheap enough.

24x36 is the biggest Mpix does, and it's $45 unmounted on E-Surface paper... A little high for a test to me, but if you might be doing a lot of them it might still be worth it.


edit
I did add canvas to make them square though, not crop. They were 3456x3456.
(They were mostly black, so I just added more black to make it square.)

 

[Boomn4x4]

I have done some google searches and this guy pretty much says that you can't even print that size photo with a 21MP camera.

How Big Can I Print by Thom Hogan

You should ask Thom Hogan how many MPs are used to shoot a roadside billboard.

Going by his logic, It would have to be in the 1,000,000 range.

 

[eric-holmes]

That's why I came here to ask. I went into to Photoshop and enlarged the image to a 30x46 then I just cropped it to a 30x40 and that seemed to give me what I needed and Millers didn't give me the warning. Will that work ok?

 

[IgsEMT]

Mpix.com - Help

 

[ghache]

i have printed 24X32 at 300 dpi from a D90 and it came out great, i pretty sure youll be fine!

 

[KmH]

That's why I came here to ask. I went into to Photoshop and enlarged the image to a 30x46 then I just cropped it to a 30x40 and that seemed to give me what I needed and Millers didn't give me the warning. Will that work ok?

It depends on the image and how it was prepped. Did you sharpen it for printing? Or did you sharpen it for screen display? They are not the same.

You can sharpen an image a bit harder for a print than you can for screen display.

Which algorithm and software did you use to enlarge the image, and what paper will it be printed on?

After the enlargement and crop, what was the resultant pixel per inch resolution.

Do you softproof?

 

[eric-holmes]

It depends on the image and how it was prepped. Did you sharpen it for printing? Or did you sharpen it for screen display? They are not the same.
You can sharpen an image a bit harder for a print than you can for screen display.

I only sharpened it a little. I don't know what that entails.

Which algorithm and software did you use to enlarge the image, and what paper will it be printed on?

I tested the enlargement out using CS5 and using Bicubic.

After the enlargement and crop, what was the resultant pixel per inch resolution.

I'll have to get back to you on this. I am not at my computer.

Do you softproof?

No, I should look into that.