Printing Poster size Question...

OK, I've been shooting my son's High School Hockey team this season. I found out today that the "Board" wants to get poster size photos of the seniors to use a s a going away gift.

I use a 10D with a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 and have a "few" nice shots. But my question is, how crisp of a shot do I use (some have action blur) and who do I take this to to get the enlargments? I want someone who'll do the job right. Any suggestions?

Oh BTW, Here's an example of what I have. Is this good enough???

Thanks!

Should be ok - do a few crops and print some 6x4s at the same size they'll be on the final print, that will tell you how big you can make it.

I use these guys for large prints and i've been very happy with their service.

I can also recommend Elco Color. Excellent prints, fantastic pricing.

From some reason prints I had done recently, I can tell you that it's best to upsize (simple Photoshop resample in a single step using Bicubic Smoother) and then sharpen appropriately (view at 50% and sharpen it so that it looks a *little* over-sharpened). The prints should bestunning.

Don't forget that anyone looking at a poster is not going to be as close as you are to a print. Therefore, the detail may not be as important. As long as the original is a nice sharp image, when someone is standing looking at a poster it will still look sharp to them. Resolution on a roadside advertisement is terrible but the picture still looks right.

Alan.. I think youre pics look good. I've made some 30x20 sized photos using Fred Mirandas SI plugin. They came out fabulous especially the metallic prints from MPIX.COM. Not sure how the standard bi-cubic works in CS2. Heres an example of some posters i did.
http://www.pbase.com/b​illshack/graf

By the way, my sons Central States team has really been doing well since just before the holidays. Had a really successful trip to Chicago and we go to Peoria this weekend. I think there are two games at Chesterfield the weekend of the 21st if you feel like some more shooting - they are pretty exciting.

Alan, I have not had any printed out, but there is a technique in Scott Kelby's book that seems to be the business for producing poster sized prints (I have had a play, and on screen it certainly looks good). Basically it is as follows:

Start with the normal Image after applying any correction (I think the example given was 300 ppi with a size of around 10 by 6 inches).
Go to Image.. resize, ensuring resample image is checked and increase both the image size and the resolution (the example showed approx. 30 x 20 inches with the resolution upped to 360 ppi.). Ensure you also change the resample type to Bi-cubic SHARPEN.

Although this sounds all wrong, the results seem to be very good. Might be worth a bit of experimentation ...

billshack wrote:
Alan.. I think youre pics look good. I've made some 30x20 sized photos using Fred Mirandas SI plugin. They came out fabulous especially the metallic prints from MPIX.COM. Not sure how the standard bi-cubic works in CS2. Heres an example of some posters i did.
http://www.pbase.com/b​illshack/graf

By the way, my sons Central States team has really been doing well since just before the holidays. Had a really successful trip to Chicago and we go to Peoria this weekend. I think there are two games at Chesterfield the weekend of the 21st if you feel like some more shooting - they are pretty exciting.

Good to hear from you again Bill. The link you provided was password protected (no access for me). PM me and let me know the times of your sons game in the Valley. I hope to have upgraded to a 20D by then and you could give me some pointers.

Thanks Chris, I'll give this a try.

I can smell a tutorial coming on... from someone who knows what they're talking about... i'll sit quietly and listen

Some good discussion going on here regarding upsampling:

http://www.photography​-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=128309

---- Gavin

Geez..sorry to hear i hosed ya on that. Please try the link again i removed the password. Alternatively, you can check my new website at www.customsportphotos.​com There are some shots there as well. Since you are coming to chesterfield Saturday, i will bring some examples of shots processed on that metallic paper. They are not poster size but look very good.

see ya saturday.