Super size me

El Kiwi

Hi all,

Soo.... a friend of mine is a designer doing some branding for a Japanese Green Tea company, and he wants to buy one of my photos (this one) and he wants to print it at 3x5 METRES (that's almost 10x16 1/2 feet for Americans) for a trade show. This is totally outside my realm of experience, I don't even know what questions I should be asking. Firstly I guess, I took it on a 350D (8MP) in RAW, is that enough resolution to be printing that large? What sort of post-processing should I be looking at - do they normally get a professional to re-work them for a job like that? Are there any other issues I should be aware of?

Any advice gratefully accepted!

Thanks,
Colin

schmoo

Hey Colin,

I know absolutely nothing useful about big print jobs but I remember when you first posted that photo from your trip and I just had to say congratulations on landing a great gig with it. I still love the composition on it and I think it's perfect for the product.

Now I'll let someone with actual knowledge step up and answer your questions.

Ann McRae

Beautiful photo. There is a formula somewhere that shows that the larger the print, the greater the viewing distance and therefore the less resolution necessary. Think billboard vs. 4 x 6 - one you view zooming by, the other you scrutinize at arms length or closer.

3 x 5 meters and trade show suggest that the photo may be used as backdrop on a tradeshow booth - basically peices of vinyl that velcro onto a large frame. There will be resolution requirements from the company producing the product.

FWIW, my husband took one of my (unedited, no less) 8 mp snaps and made it into an advertising poster printed at 20 x 36 inches or something, and it is gorgeous. Many large format print services interpolate anyway.

Again, great shot, and see if there are any data available from the company that will print it.

Congrats!

El Kiwi wrote:

Hi all,

Soo.... a friend of mine is a designer doing some branding for a Japanese Green Tea company, and he wants to buy one of my photos (this one) and he wants to print it at 3x5 METRES (that's almost 10x16 1/2 feet for Americans) for a trade show. This is totally outside my realm of experience, I don't even know what questions I should be asking. Firstly I guess, I took it on a 350D (8MP) in RAW, is that enough resolution to be printing that large? What sort of post-processing should I be looking at - do they normally get a professional to re-work them for a job like that? Are there any other issues I should be aware of?

Any advice gratefully accepted!

Thanks,
Colin

El Kiwi

Thanks!

It's still not 100% certain (i.e. nothing is signed), but hell, I'll let him have it for free, especially if I get to see it up that big

Lovesong

Push comes to shove, you can always rely on Genuine Fractals:
http://www.ononesoftware.com/detail.php?prodLine_id=2

Beautiful picture, by the way.

SloYerRoll

Hey Colin,

I have allot of expercience w/ large format printing and I'll be happy to answer any quesrtions you have.

Most large format printing takes place at 72 dpi. {High end large format can go past 1500dpi} But trade show graphics are designed to a viewing distance of greater than 8'. The dimensions of your print being what they are, are fine in regards to resolution.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't just give this print away. Any decent trade show booth will run from 3-5k for the low end (a small business) to upwards of 500k for a large name like Heidelburg or Oce. Let these rough price estimates be a guide to how much you charge for the print.

The only thing you want to know is how much is your shot going to be incorporated into the trade show booth. If it makes up 75% of the companies image...... do the math...

-Jon

El Kiwi

Great, thanks for all the advice (and compliments!) I'll see if I can get some more info from my friend, or whoever will be doing the printing. Are there usually any differences in how you edit to print up that big? Any differences in sharpening requirements or techniques, for example?

Thanks again!

CatOne

El Kiwi wrote:

Hi all,

Soo.... a friend of mine is a designer doing some branding for a Japanese Green Tea company, and he wants to buy one of my photos (this one) and he wants to print it at 3x5 METRES (that's almost 10x16 1/2 feet for Americans) for a trade show. This is totally outside my realm of experience, I don't even know what questions I should be asking. Firstly I guess, I took it on a 350D (8MP) in RAW, is that enough resolution to be printing that large? What sort of post-processing should I be looking at - do they normally get a professional to re-work them for a job like that? Are there any other issues I should be aware of?

Any advice gratefully accepted!

Thanks,
Colin

Photoshop can do a very good job of this. CS2 and CS3 both do a very good job at upping the resolution. Just do "Image size..." and choose bicubic smoother to enlarge. It's best if you do it in steps... switch to percentages and pick 110% and let the image enlarge... and then do it again, in steps. Takes a while but you should get very good results even for a very large image.

I'd say for printing you should probably target 180 DPI for something that large... so do the math and find out how many pixels you'd need for 36" by 60" (3x5) is 6480x10800 pixels.

SloYerRoll

El Kiwi wrote:

Great, thanks for all the advice (and compliments!) I'll see if I can get some more info from my friend, or whoever will be doing the printing. Are there usually any differences in how you edit to print up that big? Any differences in sharpening requirements or techniques, for example?

Thanks again!

Not as far as your concerned.
That is up to the printers to determine what kind of sampling, sharpening and whatever other ing's they want to work on.
The best thing you can do is give them the original art and let them do their job.

-Jon