I want to get a large canvas print from a digital camera. Should I resize the photo.?

Question

Should I resize the photo or leave it up to the lab? Does any one have any experence? I am using photoshop elements 4. My camera is 5 meg how large can I realistically go? Thanks.

Answer 1

5 meg should easily get you a 16x20 and maybe a 20x24 (especially on canvas) depending on your ISO and camera quality. Having your image printed on canvas can be much more forgiving concerning detail. Small point-and-shoot cameras have very small sensors which produce images that don't enlarge very well regardless of the how many megapixels. SLR cameras typically have better optics and physically larger sensors (even at the same megapixel rating) and produce images better suited for enlarging. Photoshop doesn't have the best interpolation (enlargement) methods. I use a program called Qimage for enlarging and printing. It offers Vector and Pyramid interpolation as opposed to Bicubic, which photoshop uses. It's relatively inexpensive ($35.00, I think) and can "print" your enlargement to a file that you can take to a lab. Some online labs will tell you which interpolation programs they use. Genuine Fractals is a great program that some labs use. You can send your un-enlarged image to them and they will take it from there. I have enlarged a 6 meg image (100 ISO) to 20x24 with absolutely no loss of image quality (a very detailed wedding dress) and I have taken an 8 meg portrait to 24x36 with incredible smoothness and detail.

8 Meg is actually better than 35mm film quality! I have been a wedding photographer for 18yrs and have five 35mm film bodies and one 6x7 medium format body. I am currently shooting an 8.2 meg digital camera and getting considerably better images and enlargements than I ever got with 35mm! The ONLY practical reason to go beyond 8 meg is so you can have more freedom in cropping your image without losing quality when its enlarged.

Someone mentioned a large format film camera...Large format cameras are very rare and used very little since they are outrageously expensive and can only be used on a tripod. I'm sure this person was referring to a medium format camera. That's still a bit ridiculous as most medium format film photographers are switching to the new 12 and 16 meg digital cameras and getting better results.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Using 5 meg you would have the equivalent of a not very good 35mm , at around 8 meg you get 35mm quality. Now I have to admit this is a bit of a "stab in the dark", because I don't know what your subject matter is. However, as a rough rule of thumb, 35mm @ 80 ISO, a slow film, would give you perhaps a 10 inch by 16 inch print without the grain/digitisation interfering, You could, if your subject does not have a lot of small detail, get away with 16 X 24.

Faster film, or less pixels will reduce this.

Now comes the "leap of faith", bit,

Assuming your cameras optics are reasonably good and you have not used an ISO setting of over 150/200 , medium speed/outdoor use settings, then hopefully you should still get
16 X 10.

Answer 3

Typically Leave Up To The Lab. The quality of the software performing the resize is VERY important in doing this.

The maximum size you can go depends on the camera's mexapixel rating. For instance a 5 megapixel camera captures a lot more detail in the image then say a 2 megapixel camera.

Answer 4

You will not be able to make a canvas bigger than 16X20, probably with only 5 megs.
Don't use photoshop; take it to a lab.
You're going to need a better camera.
Actually, you'll probably need a large format film camera for good quality

Answer 5

you may want to ask the lab what format and dpi is best for them. i recently had some wall size panels (36x90inches) that were printed at only 100dpi. that kinda surprised me but they look excellent. i was using a 8mp canon 20d. 5mp should be fine for poster size stuff.