printing enlarged photos

brightonman123

I have a noce pic that looks good on screen, but trying to print gets fuzzy results..

not expecting any awards, but any help welcome- want to soften up the image, for a large glossy poster print?

Oblivion

The limitation when trying to print large is just how many pixels have you got to play with. How big is your image in terms of pixels wide x pixels high?


Some image editing software does let you enlarge the image size by adding (interpolation) new pixels between the originals, but the results are usually pretty iffy.


Found this rough guide ...



5 MP = 2592 x 1944 pixels
High Quality: 10 x 13 inches
Acceptable Quality: 13 x 19 inches


4 MP = 2272 x 1704 pixels
High Quality: 9 x 12 inches
Acceptable Quality: 12 x 16 inches
3 MP = 2048 x 1536 pixel
High Quality: 8 x 10 inches
Acceptable Quality: 10 x 13 inches

2 MP = 1600 x 1200 pixels
High Quality: 4 x 6 inches, 5 x 7 inches
Acceptable Quality: 8 x 10 inches

Less than 2 MP
Only suitable for on-screen viewing or wallet-size prints


... and this is quite a useful chart ... http://www.design215.com/toolbox/megapixels.php

brightonman123

600 x 450, 72 dpi.

was on an old digital cam, so not expecting any miracles!

Oblivion

brightonman123 wrote: »

600 x 450, 72 dpi.

was on an old digital cam, so not expecting any miracles!

Oh crikey, well that's only just over one quarter of a megapixel so you certainly won't be getting any miracles. Sorry.

bluesnake

you may be able to cheat a bit though by using a poster package like
http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

[STRIKE]or a similar thing but has pictures to view is http://rasterbator.net/[/STRIKE]

Oblivion

bluesnake wrote: »

you may be able to cheat a bit though by using a poster package like
http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

or a similar thing but has pictures to view is http://rasterbator.net/

I don't think so. These utilities seem to be designed for those who want to print a large image file but only have limited (e.g. A4) printing facilities. So it splits the image up into numerous pages that you can then physically stick together to form a mural.


Unfortunately the OP has an image file that would only adequately fill a fraction of one A4 sheet without losing quality.

bluesnake

Oblivion wrote: »

I don't think so. These utilities seem to be designed for those who want to print a large image file but only have limited (e.g. A4) printing facilities. So it splits the image up into numerous pages that you can then physically stick together to form a mural.


Unfortunately the OP has an image file that would only adequately fill a fraction of one A4 sheet without losing quality.

The op will lose some quality and rasterbaitor may not be the best bet and have removed that from my above post.

Posterazor however, will make a small picture into a larger picture using vector graphics. Agreed, most people use this software to make posters of huge sizes on a4 pages, but it is not the only use. I have got a windows 270kb png icon and blown it up to an extremely recognisable 1 page symbol using Posterasor. Sure there were some discrepancies at this magnification but were extremely minor. Also tried it with photo (625x477) of a group of people wearing foil hats and admit the sharpness is not the same as shooting with a 12mp camera, but still an extremely good photo on a3!

Anyway, Posterasor is free and is really worth a try. The output is in pdf format. Have a go yourself an you will probably be very surprised.