Has anyone out there had poster size or anything larger than 8x10 printed from a place like Walgreens? My sister-in-law does amateur photography and did some shots of my family awhile back and I am wanting to print some off. I'm thinking about one in particular I would love in one of the poster sizes available but worried it won't turn out as good as I hope. Also - whn I try to upload it to the site to order a larger size it says the quality of the photo is too low (which makes no sense because it was taken with high quality digital SL-R and I have the original on my computer - which I could always ask about and hopefully resolve.) Anyone have experience with this?
I would use Snapfish . They are online, and their print prices are very reasonable. Most of my pics are printable at a size larger then 8x10, however sometimes even thought you have a high quality SLR, the resolution will be too low to print in the bigger sizes.
What is the resolution size of the picture? It should be 300 DPI minimum, to blow up a picture to that size. The camera quality doesn't necessarily matter. The cameras generally take 4x6 sized pictures. So, you're trying to blow it up 8 times. If the resolution size is below 300 DPI, then it's not going to work. The picture quality might be high, but it's probably only high in smaller sizes. You have to have a mighty powerful camera and photography ability, to take a small picture quality enough to blow up that large. (I did not mean that to be rude, just trying to say it's very difficult to blow up pictures to that size!!)
If you have the original file (ON the camera, not the computer. It has to be the RAW image, from the camera.), if you can get the size to 18 x 24, and 300 DPI...you might get a decent print. I don't think you would be able to size up any larger then that, at a good quality.
LOL we just had a similar discussion about this with a family member. My niece is a photographer. It's not the CAMERA ... it's the LENS. The better the lens the better the pictures, the easier they are to blow up. It's also partly the setting you have the camera set at.
I know my niece has hers set at the highest settings possible and I blew up one of the senior pictures she took of my oldest son to 11x14 and it looks fabulous. I had the blow up done at Costco ($3 for an 11x14 is a kick butt price).
We only take on the highest setting, those can be blown up to room size. Thing is it doesn't matter the quality of the camera it is the quality of the settings you are using.
Another problem you may have is if it has been cropped. Say you take a picture, it has all these pixels there, at that point you could blow it up to say 12 by 24. When you crop it you are throwing pixels away, that picture can only be enlarged to what ever is left.
Not sure if I am making sense but if it is saying the quality is too low it only means enlarged to that size, not the quality in general.
If you enlarge it at Walgreens it is going to look awful and it has nothing to do with the processing.
I used them once for a 8x10 collage for Father's day. I also had some 4x6 prints made that day, some of the same shots as in the collage. The collage was horrible, the colors were off, crops were all wrong etc. I pointed out to the tech when I picked it up, that in a certain shot (4x6 printed at same time & in hand) my daughter's face was NOT obscurred by a dark shadow and had them reprint it. It was better, but not great. I've always had better luck with Wal Mart. We have 2 within 6 miles of each other, and each is only 3 miles from our house. I always use the newly remodeled one as they have newer equipment in their photo department and everything always turns out great! Good luck!
I made a HUGE collage for a friend and he was floored how nice it was. I get all my pictures done at Walgreens and have YET to have a problem with them.
I ordered 10 x 14 from Walgreen's and they are printed like a small poster rather the a photo. I've had a few people think that they were professional photos, but they're just ones that my daughter and I took with my digital camera.
Note: If the program is stating that the quality of the photo is too low, then don't have it enlarged, you will be disapointed in the quality. It doesn't matter what type of camera was used, even professional photographers with professional cameras can take a poor quality photo. It's also possible that the disc was damaged.
I've never had good luck with Walgreens online for larger prints. We tried to do some poster sized and found the same problem you did - the site wouldn't allow us to upload the full size file. [that said - are you sure your sister had her camera set on high resolution? Even the highest end DSL-Rs will take lower resolution pictures if they're not set correctly]
If you take the card into an actual Walgreens, they might be able to help better than via the website.
We used Vista Print for our two posters in our son's room. They turned out really nice.
I use Walmart for this and have great success. They will sometimes give you a hard time about a release if they think it is professional so just let them know that you and your sister did them. I always have to bring a disk of my original photo in. For some reason the site tries to size the photo down for transfer. You also may need to check the file your sister took, even though she did it hi-res it still may be smaller (inches-wise) than the poster size you are outputting which will give you the error.
Good luck!
