When it comes to digital prints, is bigger always better? It all depends on how the prints will be viewed. Most people prefer 4" X 5" and 5" X 7" prints for placing in albums because of their high resolution. Few people print larger than 8" X 10" prints for display because the rule of thumb that you need to have 200 to 300 pixels per inch to have a decent quality of print. You do need to have 200 to 300 pixels per inch for decent resolution if you are viewing a picture at arm’s length. Most poster size prints like oil paintings and other framed artwork, are viewed at greater distances so you can achieve a decent print with as few as 100 pixels per inch. The blocky effect of the lower resolution actually gives larger prints an artsy effect that many people find quite pleasing. What this means is that if you have a camera with a 6 Mega pixels resolution you can still make decent 20" X 30" posters with 100 pixels per inch.
There are two approaches to making/printing poster size prints, the print your own on ink jet printer approach and the online photo printer’s approach. Each has advantages and disadvantages. We’ll consider using online photo processors first.
Many online digital print processors produce high quality poster size prints. The great thing about using an online service as opposed to printing them at home on an ink jet printer is that the poster size prints are printed on one sheet of heavy photo paper and are ideal for framing. Poster size prints made at home, as a rule, have to be printed in segments on 8" X 10" photo paper and then assembled into a single print. One can achieve good prints this way with seams that are "almost" but "not completely" invisible. Poster size prints ordered from online processors are shipped rolled up in a heavy, cardboard mailing tube so there’s little chance of damage during shipping.
There are many excellent online digital print processor and almost everyone has one or more favorites that they enjoy dealing with. Anyone who has been following my articles on digital photography will know that three of my favorites are Shutterfly.com (http://www.shutterfly.com/?cid=GENRL_SEGOO.Digital), Snapfish.com (http://www2.snapfish.com/welcome), and Ritzpix.com (http://www.ritzpix.com/net/Default.aspx). These are my favorites because of many factors, several of the most important factors being, reasonable print prices, reasonable shipping costs, and great quality with a fantastic guarantee to back it up. Shop around if you want, but don’t select a service based on print cost alone. Many of the services with the lowest print cost will have the higher shipping & handling fees, minimum order amounts, and other hidden fees that in the end will cost you more than a service that charges slightly more per print. For more information on how to select a good online digital photo processing service, read my article http://factoidz.com/how-to-select-the-right-online-digital-print-service/.
There are a few advantages to printing poster size prints at home on a standard ink jet printer. First, you can make the individual tiles any size you want by the way you set up the slicing grid. Second, you can print the tiles on whatever style of paper you choose, from regular ink jet paper to the highest quality photo paper. Third, you save the time and cost of shipping & handling. Do these factors outweigh having the poster size print printed as a single print ready for framing, that’s a personal call. Which approach I would take depends on how I planned to display the poster size photo. If I planned to frame it, I would opt for the online service because prints to be framed should be printed on a single sheet of paper-my personal opinion and choice. I prefer the tile approach if I plan to permanently attach them to a wall with adhesive i.e. when creating a mural effect.
To create poster size prints at home you need software that allows you slice up the print into tiles. There are many commercially available software packages that allows you to do this, but there are also online programs that do this quite well and most of them are free to use. Why pay out your hard-earned money for program that you have to load on your computer when there are online programs that are free to use and you don’t even have to download them to your computer. I even use one of them and I’m a professional freelancer. The online site that I use is called "Block Posters" and it does as good a job as any of the commercial programs that I had used before as trial downloads. Here’s the link http://www.blockposters.com/. This program is very user friendly and easy to learn. No GUI (Graphical User Interface) is simpler or intuitive than the one used by this program so I’m not going to take time to explain how to use it in this article.
Some tips for shooting pictures to be used in making poster size prints.
ï‚· Use the custom ISO feature on your camera (if available) and shoot at an ISO of 100
ï‚· Set your camera for the highest resolution that it offers
ï‚· Set your camera to Aperture Priority mode which allows you to select an f-stop number that gives you a good depth of field while the camera’s on-board computer will select a shutter speed that will give you a properly exposed picture at your chosen f-stop
ï‚· Monitor shutter speed because an ISO of 100 is relatively slow so your shutter speeds will be slower than normal. Depending on the lighting conditions our shutter speed may drop below 1/60th of a second which makes shooting with a handheld camera not recommended-use a tripod or mono pod when the shutter speed drops below 1/60th of a second. Few people can handhold a camera steady enough to shoot slower than 1/60th second. Personally, I don’t recommend shooting with a handheld camera when the shutter speed drops below 1/100th of a second.
ï‚· Set you camera up to bracket your exposures by ± 3 EV (Exposure Values) and then pick the best exposed pictures during post production
OK, there you have it. Now, go out and make some great poster size prints. Like most things in photography, the only way to master these techniques is through practice, lots of practice.
