printing images, rough MP to physical size?

GeX

GeX

GeX

Soldato
Joined
17 Dec 2002
Posts
6,986
Location
Manchester
Hi

I know this will be an approximation, but what kinda sized prints should look ok when printing an image from a 6mp camera. (compact/bridge, not DSLR).
 
GeX said:
Hi

I know this will be an approximation, but what kinda sized prints should look ok when printing an image from a 6mp camera. (compact/bridge, not DSLR).
Click to expand...

Depends on the dpi setting. Generally you want to aim for 300dpi for printing. Off the top of my head I can't work out what the pixel dimensions of a 6MP image is, but take the size and divide it by 300, this will give you the size in inches. :)
 
On large prints, due to the nature of being viewed from a distance, you can get away with 200dpi, maybe even 150dpi.

I've found A3 to look good from 6MP and 30"x20" is half decent quality. You'll only want to be printing the sharpest and clearest of shots that big though really...
 
ok. thanks.

just wanting to brighten the house up, and want prints of some pictures i've taken of the local area - didnt want to spend lots getting them printed to find they looked awful :(

might be improving on the image quality though (see thread about refurb cameras.. hehe)
 
Ah, I was assuming 6MP DSLR there, you probably wouldn't get away with 30x20 on a 6MP compact, I dont think the image quality would be up to it.

edit - dunno how I missed that in the OP :/
 
GeX said:
Hi

I know this will be an approximation, but what kinda sized prints should look ok when printing an image from a 6mp camera. (compact/bridge, not DSLR).
Click to expand...
You've got two options. Explained better in this thread, but it boils down to this:

1. Print at a low ppi.
2. Increase the amount of pixels and print at a high ppi.

#1 will give you a poor quality image, as you'll be looking at roughly 100 ppi. You'll have to stand a long way back for that to look acceptable.

#2 might give you the same results. All you'll be doing is re-sampling the image to increase the pixel count, and then printing at as high a resolution as possible.

Try printing off a 100% crop at a smaller, cheaper size, using both methods. You'll soon be able to see how detailed the final result is and you'll be able to make your choice based on whichever method works better for you.
 
If you need to up-res an image to a larger size, try the trial version of Genuine Fractal. The up-scaling algorithm seems to work really well and I've seen some Photobox A2 poster prints out of a 4MP P+S (and a cropped JPEG at that, even!) that look fine printed and framed.

That's quite a tough ask, and if it can perform there, it should be able to handle a 6MP image!
 
I've had a couple of shots printed at A2 by photobox from a heavily cropped P&S jpeg and was very impressed with how they looked.

Photobox enlargements are now such good value (and the shipping pretty reasonable) that you could always get one done as a test.
 
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