I'm trying to turn one of my 5MP digital photos into a large poster print. I've done image resampling before (and let "good enough" be), but for a HQ poster, the end result just seems too lossy (either blocky with Lanzos/Bilinear, or blurry with Bspline). No matter what combination of filters I apply after resampling, it's just not getting there. Could any of you pro photographers recommend any particular resampling method and post-resampling filter operations I could apply? I'm way out of my league.

Given that I do this rarely, I don't want to spend $1000 on an Adobe Suite. However, I could easily import some Photoshop plugins into Xnview if you could recommend some. Thanks!

shouldnt you just change the PPI from Default 72 dpi to say 240 or 300 dpi,

so a 72 dpi image @ 5MP is 2580x2048 would = 35.83 x 28.44 inches but the pixel spacing is no where near decent print quality, and leaving it at 72 dpi and shrinking the image would just throw away pixels, as your keeping the same 72 dpi.

load into photoshop, and change the DPI to 300 with resampling unchecked, and the image keeps its 2580x2048 resolution, but the print size becomes 8.60 x 6.82 inches, then from there you can adjust the linear dimensions larger or smaller, and it will auto adjust the dpi.

how big of a poster did you want?

I have used this and it works well.

http://www.mostlymaths.net/2009/05/rasterbator-online-posterizer-for-home.html

I have had some experience with this recently since I took up a job as a photo editor for a magazine. My problem was trying to find images fitting a very particular theme that were large enough (8.5x11 @ 300 DPI) to reproduce in print - they were few and far between.

I am able to achieve acceptable prints in Photoshop resampling with Bicubic Smoother, and then applying unsharp mask to return some crispness and clarity to the image. I was impressed at how well this could make relatively low resolution images look very sharp in print.

Hope that helps.

How big is the poster? You should be able to print up to A3 size on a 5MP point and shoot camera on its highest resolution setting (200 - 300dpi).

Thanks for replying guys. Fatty, I'll definitely try that out.

@Skate: Thanks, but I'm not sure that's going to be adequate for the poster size. I'm trying to make the image much, much larger. The res is 1932 x 2576, 230dpi. I'd like it to cover the better half of a door, so that would be A1 size (33" x 23"). If I'm figuring this right, the picture would be extremely course at that size. It may be a little too ambitious and I might have to knock the size down; if I can handle resampling decently, maybe I'll be able to clean the rest of the image up. Your take on this?

Unfortunately, I shot this picture abroad, so re-shooting it isn't an option. I'll have to modify it in some way. Btw, this is what I'm working with.



Again, my knowledge about digital photography is lacking, so I appreciate all the helpful advice!

I tried up-sampling the image along the lines of what I suggested above. The results were decent, although it's always hard to tell until it's on paper and in your hands. If can have it printed on the cheap, or don't mind spending money to experiment, I think it'd be worth trying to print it and see how it looks.