Printing something *really* big?

growse

growse

growse

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
7,139
Location
Ironing
Maybe more for the photography forum, but I thought here might reach a wider audience.

I took a panoramic pic today and the end result is about 21,000 pixels wide. If I decided I wanted it printed (properly, in colour), full-size at 300dpi is about 6 feet (70 inches) across. Because it's a panoram, it's only about 4000 pixels high so obviously doesn't have a standard aspect ratio.

Is there anywhere in this country that would print something so big in decent photo quality? I know it'd be expensive as well, but I'm just curious if it can be done...
 
I'm sure if you paid a DTP or architectural company and supplied the materials, they'd let you use their A0/A1 printers.
 
Most large format printers feed from the roll, so obviously you won't have to have a printer that is 70inches wide, just however high it is and print it landscape if you know what I mean.

Best bet is to check the yell pages for printers / sign makers. Luckily for me I work in Marketing so have plenty of contacts :p That and we actually have a 41inch wide printer in our office :D
 
growse said:
Any ideas on the approximate costings for such a venture?
Click to expand...

We have a massive printer in work, on canvas type sheeting it comes to about £20msq or something. Cost price.

HP Designjet 4000...
 
Last edited:
I was chatting to these peeps at Focus on Imaging but can't recall the costs involved - do a search on Google.

print.jpg
 
Actually, I've seen something like that over at the pictures dept. at work :eek:

Might go and have a word with them tomorrow....... :)
 
SDK^ said:
I was chatting to these peeps at Focus on Imaging but can't recall the costs involved - do a search on Google.
Click to expand...

The local company we use for our wedding pics use a printer similar to this so I assume most pro-labs should be able to accomodate you.
 
4000 pixels at 300dpi is only 13.3 inches. If you could live with printing at 350dpi or so you'd get down to about 11.5 high by 60 wide and then all you need is someone with a wide carriage Epson that'll take roll paper.
 
my local snappy snaps have a huge epson printer on which they print canvas and the like
prints A0 at 75 notes
they could probs do panoramic if they ordered in the paper
 
A customer of mine a few years ago got a 35mm slide blown up to a 8 foot square picture . It was in two halfs 8' x 4' and was joined together when on the wall .It is awsum. It has a laminated finish ,hard to the touch and is in his swimming pool area , so must be totaly waterproof. Realy looks good , I dont know where he got it done or how much it cost , but , it proves you can get your prints transfered to a masive size.
 
Get yourself to a sign exhibition like signuk 9th May at the NEC its free if you register before hand, and take the file with you on cd, there will be massive printers there and just ask if you can print out a 'sample' of said image, as your 'interested in buying'.

i have done this before but then we were actually looking to buy but got my images printed no questions asked, just had to listen to there sales pitch for 15 - 20 mins.

Or as someone said above look out for wide-format printers in your yellow pages.
A company we use in birmingham have 5m wide machines so the size is no problem. For ref they charge around £16pm on pvc banner material.

Mark.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom