[luckyjock55]

I have been shooting in JPEG 12M, 3 star quality. When I tried to get poster size prints I was informed that my limit was about 16" X 20". I would like to get larger, poster size prints. What is the maximum size prints that I can get from my Kx? Is there something I can do to increase the dpi, ppi?

[liukaitc]

I saw print about 3 to 4 feet that came from 6mp DSLR still look great..

[Macario]

I have had that the printshop said that print quality wasn´t good for files I wanted to print a some size, proceeded anyway and they looked good. don´t just go on numbers. You will have to try it first to see how large you can go. And different printers use different calculations, so sizes may differ

[jatrax]

The k-x files should be 4288 x 2848.
If you do the math you get:
14 x 9.5 @ 300dpi
21 x 14 @ 200dpi
60 x 40 @72dpi

Most printers will tell you it is hard to tell the difference between 300dpi and 200dpi on a print so your 16 x 20 size is about right for 200dpi prints. But if you can stand a lower dots per inch then you can print much larger. Viewing distance comes into play also, you might be looking at an 8 x 10 from say 18 - 24" away but a 60 x 40" poster you might be 6 or more feet away.

You can increase the pixels in a picture by upsizing it but this results in a loss of quality. Some stock photo sites permit an upsize of 5 or 10% but beyond that the image quality deteriorates too much.

So your printer is technically correct but I would think you can push your images somewhat larger without looking too bad but it won't be a 'fine art' print, only you can determine what is acceptable though. Have them print one in the size you want and see what happens. You might have to agree to be responsible for the resultant quality.

[bobpur]

Hi

I have 12X18 prints made from cropped Kx .jpgs and you can count the hairs on the squirrels eyebrows !
Even have very decent prints at that size from my old Olympus C740 3mp camera !
Anyways you won't look at a Poster from 6" away. If that is the attitude of that place go somewhere else it might be that they are not sure
of what they are doing.
I have mine done at Costco .

[tim60]

Why capture in JPEG? If you capture in RAW the image captured is lossless, allowing you to process the image with the full possible quality. If your printer can cope with bmp or tiff files (rather than jpeg) you could get them to the printer without loss. The other advantage of lossless files is that there is less risk of picture corruption arising from loss of a few bits of data. I have seen some horrendous failures of jpeg images - shifting blocks of the image around like a jigsaw puzzle. (Anyone know how to recover the original - it does have recognizable segments - just jumbled.)
Also, I was contemplating the impact of 6MP to 12MP jump. In 12MP each pixel represents 0.707 tiems the linear dimensions represented by each pixel at 6MP.
IMO the big difference in dSLR and P&S quality is that the dSLR aloows lossless capture rather than forcing all images into quite compressed jpegs.

[Philoslothical]

When I tried to get poster size prints I was informed that my limit was about 16" X 20". I would like to get larger, poster size prints.

Pick your best shot and ask them to do it anyway. If you like the result, you know you can go ahead with more. They're probably just trying to cover their asses, in case you're not happy with the prints (or maybe they're clueless, who knows).

[Schraubstock]

Hi

I don't know if you have software to do this, but take your best original and crop a small representative part and make copies of it. Three or four will be enough.
Now play around with different degrees of enlargements/settings on each of these and make a collage of them on a page size that will fit them well and take this to your printer. This will give you an idea what sort of result you can expect. Keep this for later reference.

The crops ought to be big enough so you can actually get a good idea when viewing the collage from each of the crop's correct viewing distance. You should also subtitle each crop with the settings data so you know later which is which.

Greetings

[mysticcowboy]

You can increase your image size in post somewhat. There's a Photoshop Plugin from OnOne called Perfect Resize that does a credible job of up-sizing images. There's a free 30 day demo.

The traditional Photoshop only technique it to increase the image size by 10%, sharpen it, (carefully) then repeat the process until the final image is big enough to print at the size you want. I've gotten a 20 X 30 print that looked okay from 5 feet away with this method.

[Just1MoreDave]

I printed a shot from my *ist DS (3000x2000 pixels) at 20"x30" just to see how it looked and it was fine, and still hangs on my wall. At the time, the service I used offered to process it with an upsizing filter but I did not use it.

[Anvh]

Full read.
Resolution for print viewing distance

Note, I produce my large prints to be enjoyed in a reasonable viewing environment. In general, people who want to look at them with a magnifying glass are never going to buy one :-) After several days standing around at a trade show, my reaction to the 'oversharpened' comment is to look in my wallet for the small map of the Pacific I keep, which shows the tiny tiny island where the people who actually care live - this is one reason it's not always good to put me in a public facing role for several consecutive days :-) :-)

[MadAmos]

I've printed several of my K-X's shots in 20x30 and they look quite good. I'm guessing that the original images were cropped?

Like jatrax said, its dependent on the resolution of the file you're trying to print.

[demp10]

What is the maximum size prints that I can get from my Kx?

As big as you like it to be. It all depends on how far are you sitting while looking at the print. The 300 dpi non-sense is for images that you look like reading a book. Have you looked at a billboard close up?

[Ailuropoda]

Funny, I walked into a shop a few years ago and asked about the largest print they'd be able to make for me from a 7MP source file. The guy pointed to a rather big one on the wall and told me that it came from a 6MP source file. It was a while ago so I could be wrong but I think he said that it was a 20x30. I must know more daring shops than most people.
My personal suggestion is to just make a couple of cheap 4x6s of different resolutions. Either crop down or reduce. Make sure you label them, I forgot to do that with mine. My personal cut off is about 100dpi, though I could probably use a finer scale.
Just to toss another possibility out there, one of my favorite all time pictures was an evening shot taken with a point and shoot in natural light. Noise is hideous and well, contrast is virtually non-existent. Made an absolutely lovely mosaic with it. If I could remember how to use the program, I could make absolutely massive.

[DaveHolmes]

Finding a good printer is difficult... There are four places in my town, I'd only touch 2 of them (the other 2 give worse results than Tesco!) but if I wanted something -supersize' I'd have to leave town...