Large size printing questions from someone who doesn't know shit about printing

[bumski]

Forgive me for my ignorance. I've tried searching but this topic quickly gets overwhelmed with jargon.

I have your ordinary point and shoot digital camera (Olympus 1030sw, 10MP (3,648 x 2,736)).

I take thousands of pictures while traveling and have managed to capture a few good ones. I think it would be awesome to have large prints of my own photos hanging on the wall. Is it possible to have large prints made using images from my camera. Let's say something like 2'X4' size (i have no idea what standard sizes are). It would be to hang on my own wall. Not for photo competitions, galleries, resale, etc... So it doesn't need to be perfect to the pro photographers eye. But I don't want obviously bad prints either.

I love looking at photo galleries and often wonder how they capture images that big? I have Photoshop cs3 but have little experience using it. I thought maybe they stitch them together in photoshop or edit them somehow? But I've also seen huge pictures of lightening and don't see how that could be pictures stitched together?

Any recommended labs I can send my photos to? A place that will look at the image to tell me whether or not it can be printed (and not look like shit)? Or do some photo editing to make it look good printed? How much should I expect to pay for these services? Any mags do this kind of stuff for some extra coin? I live in Spokane if there are any places local that would obviously be ideal.

[andrewjesaitis]

Start here:
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ght=print+size

Short version, a lot of factors play into how big you can print: noise, resolution, sharpness, viewing distance. Professional magazine printing is 300dpi. But, for stuff you are going to hang on the wall, you basically just have to try and see what is acceptable to you. To save yourself some cash, print an 8x10 of part of the photo you are wanting at the scale/final resolution and see how close you can get before it starts looking bad.

As for a photo labs, I've been happy with Mpix.com. You can't get real art quality prints from them (printing on fiber etc), but for anything I'm doing it's been more than fine.

[advres]

If your camera saves images at 240 dpi (like mine does) and you print full size without "blowing it up" you get 15.2" x 11.4" max before you start losing resolution.

[Lonnie]

As GF states, you have to look at the dots per inch (DPI) of the final print. There is a lot that goes into it, but a general rule of thumb you don't won't to print anything less than 200 DPI. If you are only going to be looking at something from a distance you might be able to get way with 100 DPI, but you will see noise and other image degradation when you look at it close up.

I was going to post more, but the thread that aj linked to pretty much covers most of it.

Most of your online labs, won't let you print at a size where the resolution goes to crap.


FWIW, this is why I shoot with a 25 mp FF camera with images that are 6048 x 4032...

[leftfield]

You can get a 20" x 30" print from Costco for $8.99 and i found the quality to be surprisingly good. It's not as big as you want but should give you an idea if it's worth going any bigger.

FWIW, i've gotten a couple that size from an 8mp p&s that i've been happy with.