Poster print

ThinkOfTheChildren

ThinkOfTheChildren

Joined
Jul 7, 2000
Messages
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I'm looking to have a poster printed from an image I'm creating. I once ordered one from Zazzle so was considering them again, but noticed that they only print their posters at 100ppi and was wondering what you all thought of that. If you think that's too low, who else would you recommend for online poster printing? Seems like most sites I can find don't even advertise what ppi they're printing.
 
If a place is telling you that they only print at 100 DPI, that should be taken as a strong warning sign that the place is not running a professional quality service.

Most quality places should be able to print onto light-sensitive silver-halide papers (such as Fuji Crystal Archive) with a Fuji Frontier, a Noritsu, a Chromira, a LightJet, or similar, at at-least 300 DPI (though it is questionable whether higher than that has much benefit).

What size print are you looking to make? If it is 12"x18" or smaller, then you're best bet is probably Costco. They use Dry Creek printer profiles, so you can get your system profiled and calibrated so as to know how the output from their machines will look with good accuracy. They'll give you a continuous tone, 300 DPI print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper for for $2.99. They get it done in a few minutes, and, if there is a problem, they take it back and reprint it, free and with no questions asked, within a few more minutes.

If you want to print a really large picture, the best price for professional quality that I know of is El-Co: http://www.elcocolor.com/

If you don't want to go with El-Co, then another great option is White house Custom Color: http://www.whcc.com/

If you want the absolute best quality, price-be-damned, then you want either Laser Light Photographics ( http://www.laslight.com/ ) or Calypso ( http://www.calypsoinc.com/ ) or West Coast Imaging ( http://www.westcoastimaging.com/ )

Mike
 
100 dpi is no good. Photo-quality starts at about 300dpi, 600 IMHO.

Keep in mind that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If you send 'em an 800x600 image and ask for a 35" wide poster, I don't care how much DPI you get, it's gonna look like crap!
 
ThinkOfTheChildren said:
I'm looking to have a poster printed from an image I'm creating.
Click to expand...

Posters are normally viewed from a 'distance' and "an image I'm creating" doesn't automatically mean a photograph.. ;)
 
Thanks for the words guys.

Just to clarify, I'm creating a photomosaic... and I'm not yet sure about the size I want, but definitely bigger than 12x18. Cost is probably part of what will dictate the size that I choose.

But yes, the mosaic will be created out of hundreds of high-resolution pictures, so I can easily create a very high resolution digital image to be printed even at large sizes.

I want it as a poster because obviously the more cells that are used, the better the overall mosaic looks, but the smaller each cell becomes. So increasing size allows a viewer to not only see the overall picture, but each separate image. I really want the individual images to be clear.

White house Custom Color offers a lower price for large prints through their "Thrifty" mode, but they say that images cannot be color corrected and must contain a valid ICC profile. Since my mosaic is a composite of hundreds of photos, and since some of them are color corrected to work with the mosaic, I don't know how I can meet this part of their criteria list. Any ideas?
 
"White house Custom Color offers a lower price for large prints through their "Thrifty" mode, but they say that images cannot be color corrected and must contain a valid ICC profile. Since my mosaic is a composite of hundreds of photos, and since some of them are color corrected to work with the mosaic, I don't know how I can meet this part of their criteria list. Any ideas?"

I think you are misunderstanding what WHCC is saying. YOU can color correct anything you want, and they will print it in accordance with your color corrections, as long as your file contains a valid ICC profile. I think they are simply saying that the "Thrifty" mode precludes THEM color correcting your file for you. They are just saying that, with the "Thrifty" mode, they print the file as-is, and they are not willing to do any retouching of your file.

Regardless of the above, in accordance with this statement...

Just to clarify, I'm creating a photomosaic... and I'm not yet sure about the size I want, but definitely bigger than 12x18. Cost is probably part of what will dictate the size that I choose.
Click to expand...

...I think that this...

http://www.elcocolor.com/hot_internet_only_specials.htm

...meets your needs best.


Mike
 
Thanks, Mike! That link does indeed look like the best option. I didn't even see the specials when I went to El-Co. That'll teach me to read around on a site better :eek:
 
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