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digital camera and digi prints
Hi,
can anyone tell me the how many mega pixels i would need on a digi cam to take photos of a high enough quality to goto print for a van?
what resolution is digi print done at?
would a 5mp camera be suitable for A0 size prints?any advice appreciated or recommendations of any digi cam
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10 Replies
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Ive been playing around with this and I find with my 6m pixel camera I can enlarge to about 30″x40″ but then it starts to pixelate 😮
Dont know if this is of use to you -
unfortunatly the no of pixcels sells cameras its how the camera deals with them that counts along with metering and the lens.
if you know you want to print it well large then use RAW mode or tiff at max resoluion and switch things like sharpening and compresion off do the rest in photoshop. when printed large some edges may start to blure but should not show pixcels.chris
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Its all in the eye of the beholder
If a printout on a glossy A4 looks good at arms length it will be ok on the side of a transit from 30 feet, however if you get real close you may notice pixels.
but is this a problem?
Have you ever looked really close at a billboard? the dots are HUGE!
as previously stated resolution is only a small factor in image quality
colour depth, saturation, sharpening and subject matter are just as important, in fact subject matter and quality of photographer are probably much more important.
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The print I used for the Barbie image on the toy shop sign I recently did was taken with a now ‘old’ digital camera. I took a picture of an A4 print, at the maximum the camera would allow (I think 3.2 mp) and it turned out brilliantly.
Granted, the print is now 20ft up and even if it had appeared pixelated, the distance it is viewed now, who would have noticed, but a digital camera, especially by modern standards should take a picture that is more than passable when enlarged.
Cheers, Dewi
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You need about 125 pixels per inch of printed output , albeit on a van viewed at a relatively far distance , you CAN get away with 50.
A 6 mpix camera does 2000 x 3000 pixels , based on the 3000 length you can go from 24″ x 16″ to 60″ x 40″ without major pixelization.
You can resample the image too , and go about double that (www.irfanview.com – Free package called irfanview which has a VERY good algorithm (lanczos) to resample.)
You can also add gaussian blur to “smooth” the images at the expense of detial and sharpness.
I regularily print really big from relatively low rez graphics with pretty good results.
The formula for scanning in terms of what DPI (pixels per inch) to use is dependant on output , however its quite easy
DPI= output length/input length x 150
Ie to print a 60×40 image from a 6×4 photo , requires scanning the photo at 1500 dpi (60/6*150)
Printers only print 7 colours , so to fool us they print clumps of these colours with variable spacing and overlaps. the clumps or cells are the ACTUAL resolution of the printer
Only if one is printing with a marvellous printer on wonderful media at real slow speeds will the printer be able to print more than 150 of these cells per inch. Each cell represents 1 pixel , hence the 150/125 no. -
If anyone is interested in digital cameras, a great resource is available at
it covers most digital cameras and has hundreds of full res samples [/url]
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thanks everyone, and especially rodney for the scanning info very useful to. cheers
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I use photo zoom to enalrge my digital camera photos beyond what you would normally acheive without pixelation.
I can recommend it for anyone using the digital media
http://www.trulyphotomagic.com/shortcut … urproducts
Cheers
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There is a program called Genuine Fractals which can enlarge a photo by up to 6X without pixellation/loss of resolution. Just seen a review in a magazine for the latest version, around £179.
Cheers
Jim -
Hi DTG,
If its of any use, I have just had 4 photos I took with a 4MP Camera printed onto vinyl 36inch x 45inch and they are brilliant.
The quality of the prints are far better than I expected.
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