Printing a banner in 300dpi... help needed

G

Greenclaws

New Member
Hi guys,

I'm new to creating artwork for printing and I have to create artwork for a banner that the printer specified is to be 850mm x 2070mm @ 300dpi but can be half size (oh joy!) then printed at 200%. Even half size is 5013x12428 pixels which is 62 megapixels. That's alright for vector files but I have photos I need to use that are 'only' 12 megapixels. Apart from just majorly stretching a photo, is there any technique I'm missing to create artwork for this staggering resolution? What do people do when the resolution is 1440dpi? :icon_lol: Stitch sixty 18 megapixel photos together? :icon_scared:

Thank you for any advice you can give.
 
Greenclaws said:
Hi guys,

I'm new to creating artwork for printing and I have to create artwork for a banner that the printer specified is to be 850mm x 2070mm @ 300dpi but can be half size (oh joy!) then printed at 200%. Even half size is 5013x12428 pixels which is 62 megapixels. That's alright for vector files but I have photos I need to use that are 'only' 12 megapixels. Apart from just majorly stretching a photo, is there any technique I'm missing to create artwork for this staggering resolution? What do people do when the resolution is 1440dpi? :icon_lol: Stitch sixty 18 megapixel photos together? :icon_scared:

Thank you for any advice you can give.
Click to expand...

You don't need to go up to 1440dpi at all, often for larger format you can get away with say, 150dpi, as it is only to be viewed at more of a distance. This could be what was meant when the half size comment was made.

Really you ought to speak with the printer and see what they suggest as they are the ones who will be printing it.
 
When I designed the artwork for a large pull-up banner (about 10 ft. tall, by 4/5 ft. wide) I made the Artwork 25% which was then stretched by the printer. Not ideal but the photos restricted me, up close the quality doesnt look great but when viewing from a distance which is what it is intended for it's fine.
 
Judging by the dimensions you have given this is for a roll up banner. I used to make a lot of these and I could produce a 300dpi PDF using the PDFx1A profile at 10% size and blow up through a RIP on the printer. Never had any problems with resolution as the RIP did it all for you. See if the printer can handle that sort of enlargement and as long as your 10% original is at 300dpi it should work fine

Mark
 
Thanks for the quick response.

I know nobody would ever need to do 1440dpi but they offer it!

300dpi and 150dpi are the same dimensions in photoshop, that's why they said I could half the physical dimensions. That's still absolutely huge when you're working with photos though. I just wondered how you guys deal with it.
 
Sorry, those two other replies arrived after I started writing, and it says I can't edit my message unless the admin says so! Ok so:

Thanks for all the replies. @smartsignandprint That's right! :) Thanks for the advice, I'll ask the staff at the printers if it can do that enlargement, but the original 1702x4536 at 150dpi artwork I submitted was 'way too small and low quality'.
 
If you have it as a PDF and they have an anywhere near reasonable rip it should enlarge without issue. The biggest image size I produce is 300dpi at 20% size and enlarge from there just so the RIP process is a touch quicker.


Mark
 
Hi All - lets get my pedantic bit out the way first... you're talking about ppi. Pixels per inch. Not dpi - dots per inch. When you mention 1440dpi, I suspect you're confusing the output resolution of the printer which has nothing at all to do with the resolution of your image file. The two are completely unrelated in every respect.

When you're building artwork for wide format print all you really care about is the pixels per inch at final image size, and how that looks based on the viewing distance involved. A building wrap can look great from a file 25ppi or less at final size (yep,1mm pixels) but a lightbox needs 200ppi at final size for close up viewing. There is no one correct answer. As has been outlined above, the printer should be asking you about your viewing distance and helping you create an adequate file, without working with enormous files unnecessarily.

I've tested 200ppi vs 300ppi files on lightboxes, and not one of the (graphics professional) customers who looked could tell the difference, so I've concluded that 200ppi at final output size is the highest res needed for wide format output under any circumstances.

Late to the party I know, but thought I'd add my 2p.
 
It's called the Nyquist limit.
It's related to the signal to noise ratio. Basically an output device can only produce a certain quality from a signal, improving the signal works up until the the Nyquist limit, then has no effect.
Effectively, if you take a photo at 72dpi it will pixellate on a 720dpi printer. At 150dpi it will look OK, by 200-300dpi, there won't be much difference. At 3000dpi, you won't notice a difference between that & the 300dpi.
Then bring in viewing distance - look at posters on the underground, they are printed at about 25lpi, pretty much golf balls for screenprinters, viewed from 10m away they look fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top