Wanting to make posters of my work.?

Question

How large of a print can I make with my 10.4 megapixel Leica V-Lux 1 digital camera and still keep the quality?

I hope to get more then one answer to my question due to the fact that I saw a print made with said camera that was approximately. 11" X 14" that looked pretty good. Has any one blown up a 10 MP image that size or larger and what did you think of the results?

Answer 1

A 10MP camera produces about the same resolution as 35mm color film. Enlarging these photographs to poster size is really pushing it.
Gallery print quality is 300 dots per inch (this is roughly as fine as the human eye can resolve when you press your nose to a print.) Now, one pixel in your image file corresponds to one dot in the final print, and the V-Lux 1 produces files that are 2736 x 3648 pixels. This lets you produce gallery quality prints with a maximum size of
height: 2736 pixels / 300 dpi = 9.1 inches
width: 3648 pixels / 300 dpi = 12.1 inches
If you want to print any larger, you'll have to reduce the dpi setting. It then becomes a matter of adjusting the viewing distance to compensate. (You could make bill boards if you wanted to, so long as you viewed them from 60 feet away.)