raymir opened this issue on Dec 28, 2007 · 5 posts
raymir posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 10:11 PM
Hi guys i have a quick question.. im sure it has been addressed before and sorry if it has... i am trying to make a photo collage using photoshop.. and after im done with it iam taking it somewhere to have it printed 16x20 .. my question is... what size image should i do it in photoshop? what resolution? if theres anything else i need to do so the quality comes out perfect when its printed that big.. thanks in advanced..
NomiGraphics posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 10:52 PM
Normally for printing you want at least 300 DPI.
So a 16x20 print would be a 4800x6000 pixel image.
- Noel
raymir posted Fri, 28 December 2007 at 11:09 PM
thanks for the help
chris1972 posted Sun, 30 December 2007 at 7:39 AM
Call the print house thats going to do the printing and ask them what size and format they need.
Different printers have different requirements. For very large formats its often 150 dpi at full size
thundering1 posted Thu, 03 January 2008 at 6:49 AM
Yep - call the printer and ask THEM - believe it or not, sometimes you can even go down to 100dpi!
Often, some printing equipment (like a Lightjet or a Lambda) will do a slight version of "filling in the blanks" and smooth out stepping/jaggies. This saves not only YOU for having to create a huge file, but it saves THEIR SERVER and equipment from having to HANDLE it.
You'd be amazed at how low you can go and it still look great - especially the larger you go (billboards are often only 9, 12, or 36dpi!).
Hope this helps-
-Lew ;-)