Just curious after Cracker mentioned printing 2'x3' from a 12MP file in my D700 post. What's the largest quality print you've made from a 10-12MP image?
Depends on the viewing distance. From afar you could print a billboard with one. I have printed a 30"x60" from the 40D to go above the basement stairs in the entryway of my new house. I know that Dubsta has printed 40"x60" prints with ease from his old 1D MKII If you have a good file to start with and have the viewing room to work with you can print as large as you want.
As mentioned in the other post I have printed many 2' x 3' as well as some 2' x 2'. But the largest was a 2' by 6.5' lifesize portrait.
Most has been said already, but I watched a video from the UK the other day using a file from a D someting (can't recall but it was a prosumer Nikon) and they printed it 8 stories tall and compared it to a similarly sized print from film. Digital actually won the comparison. Can't find the link right now, but I doubt I'll be trying to print an 8 story tall image in the near future with my 14.6MP beast... But it's nice to know I could
I saw the same thing and like you, can't recall where. One reason why is that you have to stand back from a large image to view it. Something like the square of the diagonal of the image. Same thing applies to TV's. Anyway, so you do not notice that a print is made from 180 dpi for a 2 ' by 3' when you are standing a-ways back.
Thanks for the replies. I have to do a 20"x30" poster for my parents' bar and I've never printed that big, I guess I'll make out fine.
You'll do fine for sure. The only thing is to make sure you save your file for output at that size, and apply sharpening etc. *after* resizing to the desired output dimensions (at the desired output DPI setting). You'd probably get OK results just sending it to be printed as is, but if you want the print to look great it will be worth taking the time to do it right...
I've printed 20"x30" from 8.2mp 20d files, and they come out great if you have a good image to start from.
For a good article on this topic, check out: http://bythom.com/printsizes.htm If you check out the table of what quality you can get from 'X' MP images, even the 21MP files from a 5dMkII create poor 24"x36" images at 156 native DPI. So even with those 21MP, if you want to create a top-notch 2'x3' image, you will need to do some up-sampling to get >288dpi. The whole "don't sweat the difference between 12 and 21 MP" still applies. You can create gorgeous, huge prints from either sensor, but if you really should be preparing your files for the appropriate output size and not just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best.
