whats the biggest print for a 10mp mage?

[drefaith]

thanks!

 

[jfriend00]

Here's an article and table that discusses the minimum image resolution for a given print size.

http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality

The answer, according to this article, is that you can print a quality 10MP image very large (larger than 30x40) if you use a high quality printer with high quality printing software.

I've printed 6MP images at 20x30 and felt like I could have gone bigger.
--
John
Popular: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/popular
Portfolio: http://jfriend.smugmug.com/portfolio

 

[drefaith]

thanks for the link. really? i thought one can only print and a3 sized image with a 10mp. i mean the best print for that mp. but i guess im wrong then. gurus out there, help pls. is this 300 dpi on photoshop?

 

[LiveM]

The larger you go, the further away it will probably be viewed. So it depends what you are using it for.

Just don't forget that medium and large format cameras are there for a reason, and it's not to print 8 x 12.

 

[wmsson]

thanks for the link. really? i thought one can only print and a3
sized image with a 10mp. i mean the best print for that mp. but i
guess im wrong then. gurus out there, help pls. is this 300 dpi
on photoshop?

Divide your pixel count (lenght and width) by 300 and that will tell you how many inches your print will be.

Note in the link provided the types of printers they are using. These are professional printers that don't need as many ppi as an inkjet printer to get good quality and they also uprez your photo (properly) if needed to print it larger.

 

[LiveM]

Divide your pixel count (lenght and width) by 300 and that will
tell you how many inches your print will be.

Who told you that? Doesn't sound right to me. DPI and pixel count are unrelated, are they not?

 

[LiveM]

That is, not directly, and certainly not equivalent.

 

[John Motts]

Your file does not have to be 300dpi. You can go down to 200 or even less before you need to up-res the image.

There are no definates here as quality is subjective. Just experiment, maybe with a section of the image.

 

[Barrie Davis]

If it will make a 10x8" that looks good...
....it will make anything...
......in fact, any size you like..
............big as Colorado, if you want !!!

But you DO have to stand back at the right viewing distance. In the case of Colorado sized prints, that would be from low Earth orbit.

Neither does the number of pixels on the sensor change anything.

Indeed, this rule is a carry over from film photography. It is one thing that did NOT change with digital.
--
Regards,
Baz

 

[Leon Wittwer]

as large as you can get printed assuming a viewing distance of at least a foot. It depends strongly on the content. If you take a picture that has significant detail to the limit of the camera sensor and you want that detail to look good at the limit of human vision at about a foot, then an 8x10 is the approximate limit. For other image content and larger viewing distances, you can get to larger prints. For example, if the camera resolution is able to reasonably resolve all significant details in the image, then there is no limit on size (except for cost, printer availability, etc).

Put another way, an 8x10 at a foot will be adequate to handle any scene content from 9 MP.
--
Leon
http://homepage.mac.com/leonwittwer/landscapes.htm

 

[Parisis]

at least billboard size
--
Check my Photo Blog
http://parisea.blogspot.com/

 

[echelon2004]

viewving distance, rip, printmedia, image quality, image subject, viewing intent, print technology and of course, what one believes is acceptable quality.
--
Anders

Some of my pictures can be seen at;
http://teamexcalibur.se/US/usindex.html

event photography and photo journalism

 

[Jon Laye]

The camera does not limit the size of the print, the size of the print is limited to the printing hardware. With a large enough printer, I have had images printed to cover the side of a bus, 8'x40'. Another shot, a 15MB image from a cropped shot taken with a Canon 20D was printed 12'x12'.

Jon

 

[Photomonkey]

Finally, a bunch of responses that are based on real world experience and not hearsay from someone on a board that has never printed larger than 8x10.

As the others have said, the image can go as large as you want, Sub 10MP is what is covering a ton of billboards today.

 

[drefaith]

Finally, a bunch of responses that are based on real world
experience and not hearsay from someone on a board that has never
printed larger than 8x10.

As the others have said, the image can go as large as you want, Sub
10MP is what is covering a ton of billboards today.

really now? thats new. i thought only the 16.7 mp cams are capable of that. this is why i was concerned of buying a d80. it might not be that good after a year or after 2 years.

and how about a frontpage cover for a magazine for example. offset printers. would a 10mp camera do justice?

 

[Barrie Davis]

and how about a frontpage cover for a magazine for example. offset
printers. would a 10mp camera do justice?

The result from 10MP will be more than satisfactory, always assuming that ...

1) the image was of high quality in the first place.

"High quality" is NOT the same thing as having lots of pixels. The pixel count is relatively unimportant as soon as you get past 5MP.

2) and always assuming that every OTHER part of the litho repro chain was carried out as it should be .... meaning the being work done to an equally high quality standard.

As long as those two criteria are met... 10MP is more than enough resolution potential* for a double page spread, not just a single cover.

Note: pixels on the CCD are only ever "potential" resolution. You still need lenses that can make use of all the pixels available....
--
Regards,
Baz

 

[drefaith]

and how about a frontpage cover for a magazine for example. offset
printers. would a 10mp camera do justice?

The result from 10MP will be more than satisfactory, always
assuming that ...

1) the image was of high quality in the first place.

"High quality" is NOT the same thing as having lots of pixels. The
pixel count is relatively unimportant as soon as you get past 5MP.

2) and always assuming that every OTHER part of the litho repro
chain was carried out as it should be .... meaning the being work
done to an equally high quality standard.

As long as those two criteria are met... 10MP is more than enough
resolution potential* for a double page spread, not just a single
cover.

Note: pixels on the CCD are only ever "potential" resolution. You
still need lenses that can make use of all the pixels available....
--
Regards,
Baz

thanks Baz, thats really enlightening. i know lenses do really affect our images. thats why when i was on film before, i used to buy asa 50 films for that fine fine print. im glad i put this up hehehe.

 

[thebard37]

. . that is 6MP territory.

Heck twelve will get a double truck.

And the D80 is a very fine camera, arguably the best camera released in 2006, and will fetch you all sorts of cool prints.

MP count is sort of a myth. Because fixed cost per sensor is usualyl the exact same for different MP cout ns on the same sensor size, the manufacturers use the higfher count to justify a markup and engender a "need" for perpetual upgrade.

If the MP reace ended now (or kept going for that matter) the quality of printed work would not change in reality for the vast majority of applications. We would just have hard drives jammed full of stuff.

--



--
Zach Bellino
'I prefer my lo-mein of the veggie variety.'
--ZJB
'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

 

[Paul5D]

I have quite a few 30" by 20" prints from my old Sony R1 (10.3MP) and they are good enough to view at less that 6 inches. These are printed on an A1 HP printer either directly from photoshop or via Qimage.

I've pushed images to an effective size 4 times larger (i.e a crop from the image as my printer can't print that big!) and they look just as good as long as you view from at least 4 feet away.

--
Canon 5D + 70-200 2.8 IS - A great combination
My Website - http://www.aipix.co.uk
:: NEW :: My new blog: http://aipix.blogspot.com/
Now a Mac Pro user! loving every minute!

 

[rob outlaw]

Here is my two cents worth on the subject.

I do a lot of printing locally for artist as well as other photographers and have seen just about everything by now from scanned 4x5 to 35mm scans with very large files as well as just about every digital camera you can think of, not to mention my own prints. Last year at about this time I printed a D200 image that was shot in jpeg, (not a raw conversion) 42" on the long dimension from my Ep 9600 at around 90dpi on Epson premium luster, and I can tell you with absolute certainty it looked notably better than the vast majority of 35mm scans at over 100 mb I have seen.

When the first classic Nikon D1 became available which was only produced a 7.5mb file, I printed two images that were 30x40 on Fuji Crystal Archive from images on a shoot in the Everglades. Those prints are still on display at the local camera store. Does the D2x image quality look better, absolutely, but I also regularly reproduce prints upwards of 60" on the long dimension with that camera without any up sizing whatsoever and many with only around 90 dpi and some with notably less dpi than that. In my studio I hung for a long period of time a classic D1 landscape that was 42" on the long dimension. I never once heard a comment about poor image quality from people even when they walked up to it within inches scutinizing the stew out of it. Would a 4x5 have looked better... yes without a doubt.

At the risk of sounding a bit arrogant (which I do not mean to) I would be willing to wager I have consumed more ink and paper, than all of the others responding to this thread combined, pushing the envelope of just how large one can print from digital cameras. My findings are even without up sizing you can print very large.

As a quick antecdote, I once read where Dan Margulis went to press with a digital camera image which was only 72dpi. It was a mistake apparently that this image was included at that size, but also too late to change. From what I remember he could not tell the difference between it and the others in the printed piece that were the conventional 300dpi. The moral of the story is that for some reason you can do things with digital capture that was not possible with film.

Hope this helps.
--
Rob Outlaw Photography

http://www.roboutlawphotography.com