Giclee Printing

[Ubergeek]

I have a Canon 1000D which produces images at 3,888 x 2,592 what is the maximum size Giclee print I could get away with, this is one area that always confuses me.

Regards.

[digirebelva]

I have printed images from my old XTI which has the same 10mp sensor anywhere from 4x6 up to 12x18...and sold them...

[ravncat]

This depends alot on a few things -

3,888 x 2,592

Giclee basically just means an inkjet print. Usually as a fine art term. So assumes it`s an inkjet print likely with 8 -12 colored inks, and that the ink and paper are archival.

So - The maximum size you can print depends on your method of inkjet printing (dithered - Halftone, Quadtone etc...) the viewing distance that you want to use, and the DPI you require (which varies depending on the paper, (and really any other factors affecting ink-bleed.)

It also depends on the quality of your image (pixels, focus) and prevalence of noise. With interpolation, and a very high quality capture on a paper that has a small amount of bleed, with a long viewing distance, you can print with a lower dpi and make something billboard sized.

If you assume one dot per pixel, you could just divide (your image resolution) by the dpi (300 is a standard "High Quality" value) and get 12.9"x8.64" as a maximum native print size at 300dpi. That would certainly be nice quality. But honestly, with careful handling (interpolation, proper output sharpening), you should be able to print much larger than that. 240dpi (in your case, 16.2"x10.8") is often quoted as a minimum for quality prints, but I`ve seen very nice prints as low as 150ppi. (again, it depends alot on the source material, if there`s not alot of very fine detail and you are using a matte paper that allows alot of ink bleed, 150 can look very very nice)

[Ubergeek]

Thanks for the replies, so its really about experimenting and maybe ordering a few prints and seeing how they come back to 100% sure.

Regards.