printing on canvas

[nojeb96]

If I printed a photo taken by a 18 megapixel camera on to a cavas will it turn out better than one that's been taken by a 10 megapixel?

 

[Buckster]

Not necessarily, but not impossible either. There are way too many variables beyond number of pixels to give you a straight answer on this.

 

[Big Mike]

Yes, there are way too many other variables involved.

Printing on Canvas does have the advantage that the texture can somewhat 'hide' a lack of resolution.

This is a photo of the canvas print that I have hanging on my wall. The frame is 50" x 30", the print is 2" larger on each side because it's a gallery wrap. It was taken with an 8MP camera. Most logic will say that I didn't have enough resolution for such a large print, and up close it does show that...but when I back up a few steps, it looks great.

 

[KmH]

Add that there are different kinds of canvas, including 'canvas' that is actually just cheap textured plastic, and different ways of getting the image on the canvas.

 

[Arturos]

I agree with Buckster, having more megapixels doesn’t necessarily mean better print quality. Assuming that both cameras are of equivalent standard (i.e. same brand and lens), the only thing that the higher number of megapixels will change is the maximum print size.

For example, if you decide to print in the 7:5 aspect ratio, a 10 megapixel camera can produce images with the pixel dimensions of 3744 wide and 2672 high. If you multiply width by height, you will get arond10 million pixels (3,744 x 2,672 = 10,003,968), that’s why it’s called a 10 megapixel camera. If you would like to print images taken by this camera at a decent resolution of 300 pixels per inch, you could expect the print dimensions to be 12.5” wide and 8.9” high. If you would have used the 18 megapixel camera instead, the print size would be proportionally bigger.

The choice of the camera should depend on the size you’re willing to print. Depending on the texture of your canvas and on the type of your image (photo, illustration, fine art), you can play with the resolution a little bit. If you want to have a well detailed photo, I wouldn’t recommend going below 240ppi.

Quality is dependent on more factors than just megapixels. In general, the number of megapixels affects the size of an image while its quality depends on the camera type and the lens you’re using.

Hope that helps!