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Large Format Digital Printing

post #1 of 9
9/13/09 at 8:30am
Thread Starter 
 I took some amazing timed exposure digital pictures in Carlsbad Caverns, and want to print at least one to poster size.  I've been looking online, and one of the best deals I found was Costco, who will print 20x30 posters for $8.

I don't need breathtaking quality, and the camera is only 6 megapixels, but I would like it to be accurate to the image I took..  I will probably build an inexpensive frame for the poster, myself.

Is this the best deal, or is Costco's poster printing to be avoided?
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post #2 of 9
9/13/09 at 10:37am
 A friend of mine printed up a poster I designed through Costco, and the quality is very good.  However, my design was a montage of LA movie theater marquees, not a single shot blown up.  If you've got the resolution, I'd say go for it.
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post #3 of 9
9/13/09 at 12:01pm
Thread Starter 
 Cool.  I have heard about some sort of fractal plugin for Photoshop that allows really good enlargements without pixelization.  Do you think something like that would be worth persuing as well?  I am increasing the size of my image about four times in order to do this print.
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post #4 of 9
9/13/09 at 2:56pm
For the price (so cheap) I would get one each at costco, mpix and whcc.com and see if you can live with the costco quality or if the services that a custom lab like whcc bring to the table are worth paying to have all yours done up that size.
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post #5 of 9
9/13/09 at 7:44pm
 I'm not familiar with the Photoshop plugin you mentioned, so I can't help you there.
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post #6 of 9
9/13/09 at 8:33pm
I use "Genuine Fractals." It's interesting software, and I look forward to the day when it could be applied to real time video.

Anyways, you shouldn't need that for your poster. 6MP will do fine. I could enlarge it for you though if you'd like to see what you'd get.
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post #7 of 9
9/14/09 at 5:41am
My experience has been:  let the lab you are using do your upconversion for you.
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post #8 of 9
9/14/09 at 6:08am
Thread Starter 
 I upped it in Corel Photo Paint and uploaded it to the Costco system.  It will be ready today by one, so it is a $9 experiment that will soon be concluded.

Zack, I may take you up on that if this doesn't work, or possibly for a future attempt.  If I like the poster, I plan to print more for family members, so a second version using Genuine Fractals would be a great comparison.
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post #9 of 9
9/14/09 at 11:17pm
Thread Starter 
 The printed result looked great.  I strive for accuracy in color reproduction from my monitors on down, so it looked basically the same as on my screen.

I still want to go back for more photos, but so far I am happy.  Thanks, guys!
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