Printing A2 Poster Online

miikeeyy92 · 27 Jul 2023 at 09:50

Morning All

I have a map that I have generated in QGIS and want to print it on A2.

To get enough definition in the map I need to print it at >600dpi but I have had a couple of people tell me "that 300dpi would look miles better for a poster". Surely this is a load of rubbish, providing a printer can print at the required resolution, an image scaled for said resolution would look just fine?

I was going to use dscolourlabs.co.uk but they only print up to 300dpi.

Any recommendations for higher resolution services?

Thanks.

Raymond Lin · 27 Jul 2023 at 09:57

A2, 600 dpi

Works out at 14,040 x 9,900 pixels, which is 138million pixels.

So the obvious question is, unless you have a photo that is 138 million pixels already, where is the extra detail going to come from?

miikeeyy92 · 27 Jul 2023 at 10:05

Its not a photo, its an image generated from shapefiles/gpx traces/DEM's, thus the resulting image can be made at any size/resolution. I've just found that to get the detail at A2 size, 600dpi is required.

Raymond Lin · 27 Jul 2023 at 10:15

Right, you can try here.

The Giclee Studio | Fine Art and Printmaker

Fine Art Giclée and Printmaker

www.thegicleestudio.co.uk

They say you can upload a 600dpi image, don't state what they print at though, might be drop them an email.

The reason people tell you 300dpi is enough, is because our human eyes can't see 600dpi at normal viewing distances, we can see between 200-300dpi usually.

miikeeyy92 · 27 Jul 2023 at 13:34

Raymond Lin said:
Right, you can try here.

The Giclee Studio | Fine Art and Printmaker

Fine Art Giclée and Printmaker

www.thegicleestudio.co.uk

They say you can upload a 600dpi image, don't state what they print at though, might be drop them an email.

The reason people tell you 300dpi is enough, is because our human eyes can't see 600dpi at normal viewing distances, we can see between 200-300dpi usually.

Thanks for the great suggestion - theyre just around the corner from me and print up to 600!

Thats probably why people say 300dpi is "best" but this is a print thats very much meant for having a close look.