Printing and Framing Panoramas!

Hey Guys,

I've got a huge 77" X 22" skyline panorama and I want to ask you about ways to frame this. I figured that finding such a huge frame would be quite difficult/expensive (or is it not?)
As an alternative I'm thinking of splitting into 3 images (say 1,2,3 left to right), printing them and then displaying them as 2 on top of 1 and 3. I saw this kind of framing sometime back at a gallery and it seems practical (since printing and finding a frame 25" X 22" looks to be easier).

What are your thoughts on this? Or do you think I print huge and get a huge frame (don't know from where? :-s) ? Just a design issue since I've never printed so big.

Also, where should I get it printed and where should I look for cheap frames? I was looking at Pixel Outpost, ezprints and whcc but whcc and ezprints only accept JPG (somehow not comfortable with getting a JPG printed).

Thanks a lot in advance,
Arjun

I think www.whcc.com can print panoramics up to a certain size. But im not sure, its been a while since ive checked their site out.

You could go to a custom framer and ask them for a quote. Other than making it yourself, getting a framer is probably the only alternative for custom sizes like that.

WHCC does a good job at printing larger images. You may even be able to save a few bucks and print multiples on one sheet. They cut images for $.25! If you're going to board or plastic mount it before framing, let them do it. Just cut it yourself when you get it back. (i.e. 12x36 pano -> print two as 24x36, mount on styrene board and cut when it arrives. If they cut it, they charge for 2 seperate mounts.)

- Dean

I've rediscovered a love of panoramas since I got my DSLR a few months ago. I've used software like AutoStitch to create panoramas up to about 18,000 x 6,000 pixels - so in theory they should be printable at up to about 72"x24" (assuming say 250ppi). Like you I haven't actually printed any that big, and I'm not sure whether I will bother. The reason is that, whilst I enjoy putting the panoramas together, I find myself sometimes a little dissatisfied with the artistic side of the end product.

It's a little hard to explain, but I feel there's just something a bit more interesting in 'hand-made' panoramas - the ones I used to do by overlapping a bunch of 6x4 prints - compared to the seamlessly stitched digital ones I can create nowadays. Maybe it's because the unevenness of the overlaps says something about how it was produced. Anyway I'm tempted to try two versions of the same panorama and see which one I like more. I also intend to try creating a digital version of a hand-made panorama, by overlapping a lot of images in software. (But only after I buy a load more RAM for my PC!)

The point of this that, if I were you, I'm not sure I would go for the 77"x22" framed print. Depending on the nature of the view - any chance you could post a small version of it here? - it might look better in three pieces each about 25" wide. If you hang them near one another but not touching - or even at slightly different levels - you might get an interesting effect. Or how about one frame with a digitally stitched version, one frame with a digitally overlapped version, and one frame with a manually overlapped version?

I guess the key question is how artistic do you want your end product to be? Or are you after something that's a faithful representation of what you saw that day?

Last Friday afternoon the office was a bit quiet so I thought I'd try priting a panorama on our HP DesignJet 1050c printer. This is a formidable machine that prints on a 36" (91cm) wide roll of paper: in theory it can print banners up to 300 ft (91m) long!

I've posted a small version of the panorama - the frontage of Blenheim Palace - below. The full-size panorama is 16551x2689 pixels, which I stitched from 9 photos taken with my 350D.

Anyway the problem was that I couldn't work out how to tell the printer how much to scale the print. I tried telling it to scale the print to 100cm long (hence about 16cm high), but what I got was just a section of the print, about 100x35cm, showing less than half of the picture. I tried again asking for a scaling factor of 150cm, and got a similar result: about 2/3rds of the picture scaled to 150x35cm. In the end I gave up and did the obvious, and I now have a lovely print that is 220x35cm!!!

It's on high-quality printer paper rather than glossy photo paper, but the quality is quite acceptable. And I calculate that the printed resolution is around 190 PPI, which is fine for a print this size. All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Just one problem though ... where on earth can I put it???!

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Hahah..exactly...findi​ng a frame for panos is so difficult..I mean it's not one of the commercial frames...and even IKEA has only one such frame (88cm X 30cm)...so I guess if the photo's that good..you should get a custom frame made.

Yeah, but even if I got a custom-made frame, the problem is that the pano is just so flippin' BIG! I don't think I could persuade my wife that it was worth building an extension on the house, just to have somewhere to hang my pictures...

I printed this one on an Epson banner printer at 75"x30". I then took it to a local framer here in Atlanta and got it nicely framed in a brushed aluminum for around $500.00. Just remember that you do not want to use glass in a frame that size or it will weigh a ton. I used non-glare plexi and it really isn't that hard to handle. It does have its own wall in my office.