Martin A Loc: jacksonville, FL

I'm looking to print about 10 images on canvas. Everybody seems to be getting into the business. My research raises questions. Prices are all over the place. Each printer has different suggestions about DPI. The high end guys recommend 300 DPI. Others as low as 150 DPI. These say that the canvas surface won't support higher DPI anyway. Who is right.

One previous post recommends Costco for price and performance. Costco wants 150 DPI. Someone said Costco farms their work out to Bay Photo. Bay Photo suggests 300 DPi. Its like a maze. Who do I go with?

TheTruth

300 DPI would get you good paper prints. I have seen as low as 72 for canvas. Have not tried any yet.

I will but would start with a small test case 6" by 6" at maybe 100 DPI.

wylie Loc: Canada

Why not send along at 300 dpi and be ASSURED of the best results for the photo you see. If the output provider requires it at a smaller size they will do it.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

As a canvas printer I will let you in on the secret. 300 dpi, the industry standard for "photo quality", is great for arms length viewing such as 4x6 and 5x7. Your eye is close to the medium so it picks up all detail. When it comes to larger sizes like 16x24, they are viewed from a distance and you can get away with a smaller dpi rating. The eye does not pick up on the finer details unless we get real close. For larger sizes you can get away with 75 dpi and as long as you put a fence line up and don't allow close viewing you will be fine. Next time you get a chance, get up close and personal to a billboard and you will see it is really just a bunch of big dots but when viewed from the highway it looks like a photo.

My own personal prints, canvas, paper whatever I strive for 300 dpi when at all possible and only reduce as the file size dictates. If I had a file that was 5,000 x 5,000 and I wanted a 20x20 I would print at 250 dpi which is the best I could get. If that same file was to be a 40x40 I would print at 125 dpi, again the best I could get but realize that if anyone viewing this from up close would see the dots that make up the picture.

Canvas pricing is dictated by many variable such as quality of the canvas, printing inks used, strecher bars, lamination and methodology. Look for clean cut corners with out the ugly bulges as your guideline. Not the only one but a good indicator. Tap the center of the canvas for that drum sound, this should remain even after many months. Also, you should look at the back and see if it looks clean and polished or is it just a rough unpolished job.

Bottom line, use 300 dpi when at all possible for best detail and yes canvas will accept 300 dpi although because of its rough texture you won't always appreciate it. Don't be afraid to ask the producer what canvas they are using but remember that in the case of places like Costco who farm it out they wouldn't have the first clue. Have a small one done and judge for yourself.

Hope I answered your questions.

GHK Loc: The Vale of Eden

My comment is not, specifically about canvas. In the above a resolution of 300 dpi is mentioned, and it has cropped up in many other posts. I think that adherence to this particular res. has arisen because this was very often that demanded by large printing houses whight used giant offset presses or similar. This just got switched to inkjet printing as a matter of course and, if I may say so, without much thought. I do not really know the position in the USA, but, in the UK, a large majority of serious photographers use Epson printers which have print dot resolutions of 1440, 2880, 5760 dpi. For inkjet printing it is desirable that the image resolution should divide EXACTLY into the printer res. 300 is not a precise fraction of the above. Examples of better image res for Epson would 360 or 288 - ther are, of course, others.
This may not apply to all printers; I have an idea that 300 may be OK for Canon.

GHK

avengine

I have been in this business for 16 yrs, and all this is base on the viewing distance and the content of the image, if the image is the photo, no type or line on it, I would say 100 dpi actual size is enough, this will save you ton of time in processing, upload etc.
if you have small type (10 points) in the file, a lot of fine line, very detail color, then 300 dpi is fine too. But don't forget, it the final size is 60"x 100", you has to work with a very big file. And we prefer the customer to use CMYK mode and save in tif with LZW compression to save the file size, but still it is very big.
But no matter what way you are doing, the printing is fine in our machine so far.
But just keep in mind no one will promise you 100% color right, 80-95% is what we can see all the time.

Martin A Loc: jacksonville, FL

Thank you all! Great information. It will help me. I will strive for 300 DPI.

One last question... If 300 DPI is not possible for the size I want to print, should I use OnOne software Perfect Resize to achieve it before I send the file in?

avengine

I would say the most important thing is still the original content, whatever plugin is only help but not the perfect, and don't forget when the thing is big, is for looking at a distance then most of the time, it is fine.

Armadillo Loc: Ventura, CA

There is another advantage to using Canvas prints.
1. The texture of the canvas backing tends to mask digital noise from high ISO captures.
2. We can add Brush Strokes to the canvas backing to simulate an artist's painting. This further masks digital noise on larger prints.

We used to do this in film photography. We would take a few rolls of ASA 400 film to the Basketball game and set the camera to expose at 800 or 1600 ASA, then when we sent the exposed film to Kodak we specified they "push process" the film.

When we received the negatives and test prints back we had good captures of the ball game action, but a lot of emulsion grain from pushing the processing in the lab.

When printing shots for school display at 16x20 inch prints we could use Canvas prints to mask a lot of the grain, and add Brush Strokes to mask a majority of the grain and add the artists touch.

M Gordon

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

And here you delve into the great grey abyss with an almost infinite number of thoughts on the problem. The larger you plan on printing the less dpi required simply due to the increase in viewing distance. Now on the other extreme, if your file has a pixel dimension of 600x600, using the 300 dpi rule your print would be 2" x 2". Going at 150 dpi you would get a 4" x 4" print but you will start to see the pixelation due to the close viewing distance and it gets worse from there. can you increase the number of pixels? Yes, but how many is the problem. Old school says to increase by 10% and then repeat. But with newer algorythms today you can take bigger steps. Regardless, you are losing quality. Try it and see how things go. Keep tabs on the results for future reference.

bunuweld Loc: Arizona

One-on-One software does NOT add true resolution. What it does is create replicas of the existing pixels in the original and and use those replicas to fill the gaps that would appear with larger dimensions. Your eye will be deceived into seeing a better enlarged image because it will be less "pixelated". For exhibition purposes, that software will improve your ability to enlarge the picture while hiding the gaps between the original pixels.

paulw Loc: nottinghamshire

thankyou big guy u have just answered many of my recent posts

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

Glad to be of service. :)