where can I get a 12 by 8 foot print of a photograph, high quality and reasonable?

Question

Its for an art exhibition and I will want to get it mounted.

Answer 1

There is sort of a paradox here: reasonable price, high quality, just don't intersect at any point. However, being that this photograph is for an art exhibition, divorce yourself the idea so much of cost, and focus on quality, because quality is really the issue here. Scale does make a big impression, and 12x8 feet would do the job, but at this scale, especially if the gallery is small, where people are forced to look at the image up close, detail will be an issue (unless you dont care about detail and love lots of grain, or digital noise and artifacting).
First of all what is your original image that you wish to enlarge: 4x6 photograph, 35mm negative, high res tiff or raw file, 4x5 negative? Assuming that you want to create a digital print, instead of a traditional silver print, your original image will need to be scanned with a drum scanner in order to get a sufficient amount of information needed to print very large without running into digital artifacting, or having the need to interpolate a lot. If you are using a 35mm negative or 4x6 photo you will most likely run into some degredation of the image. On the other hand if you have a large negative: 4x5, 8x10, then enlarging and degredation of the image wont be an issue.
As far as what kind of process to use to print, I would suggest a lightjet print because unlike your inkjet prints which try to mimic continuous tone photos, lightjets can actually produce a continuous tone image. Of course it wont be cheap, but the cheaper process would be using an inkjet print which can be accomplished on say a large format Epson printer, though mind you that you will have to tile the image as the printers wont go 8 feet wide. Anyhow either way you should consult a professional at one of the links below, or do a google search on fine art digital printing. Without really knowing your budget, the type of image you have, it is hard to give you a firm estimate of what price range you are looking at.

Answer 2

At 12 feet by 8 feet, it won't be "reasonable"...

Answer 3

A paint brush, a lot of time and patience. Nothing comes cheap, and good.

Answer 4

try this site,

http://www.fotostation.co.uk/large-Format-poster-printing-A1-A3.html