Collage mats for large frames?

Hello all Well, Michael's and A.C. Moore both had a sale on frames.
I bought a single 16x20" clear "free floating" glass frame from A.C. Moore.
I bought another 16x20" and a 27x40" from Michael's. All are nice for the
prices but not the best quality. But I just needed something to hang photos
in the house so Mom will stop complaining how I never print my own stuff

The problem is - I want to make a collage, I think the word is, out of the
27x40" frame. But I can't seem to find ANY mats for this size!
Anybody have any suggestions? Pref. for a collage of a center piece
(say 16x20" or a little smaller) and a few prints around it.

Thanks all

You could PS a collage & just print it like I did for my book: http://home.comcast.ne​t …lides/details_0​1_web.html

A good idea! Any experience with http://www.perfectpost​ers.com/ ?
A handful of people on a astronomy forum I visit have used them to print
up poster of their astrophotography work. But curious if anybody else has opinions of them.

Bout $41 shipped for a 27x40" print. Not that bad of a price and its within my budget.
Just tired of listening to my parents complain about not having anything printed up.
So they bought the frames and have set a $55 budget for the prints.

My question now is - I usually (at least for 8x10's!) set the image so the aspect ratio
will be fine for upsizing it to whatever size I want to print. Then I upload and print.
What I'm basically saying is - even though I may order a 8x10 print, the size in Photoshop
is NOT 8x10 (smaller). Will this be acceptable way to print a larger size photo?

Or should I increase DPI or Document size to match what I want to print?
It comes out distorted... But from what I understand, if its a framed print and
your not standing real up close, it'll look OK. Right? Am I understanding this right?

Thanks

If you didn't change the resolution, you should be OK, but I prefer to size & then sharpen for that size.

I only decrease if the res goes up to 360 because Costco said that it would crash their computer. Usually I'm at 300.

That shouldn't happen.

Probably. Viewing distance should be at least at the diagonal of the print. Depends on what rank you have on your Measurebater card?

By changing the resolution - do you mean just cropping a little of the full file RAW file
but not down-sizing the resolution? If so, then yes that is what I do.

My DPI right now is @ 300... but for an example, none of the pictures are above 11 inches.
In the document size. By distorted, I mean on the computer (yet to print above 8x10).
And I'm not quiet sure what a Measurebater card is ?

Yes.

Sorry, I still don't understand.

Joke. As you spend time here, you'll see it used for people who nit pick minutia about what lens/technique is .0001% better than another.

OK. Here is an example. I have this sunset photo I want to print as a 11x14" photo.
Its going to be matted in a 16x20" frame. Sounds like a good plan right?

Problem is the document size is smaller than 11x14 inches, in Photoshop.
The DPI is at 300. So I'd have to upsize it in Photoshop then crop it down to size.
When I upsize it in Photoshop, though, it does not look as sharp as the original photo.
Its slightly distorted, as in not very sharp of a focus and now looks soft.

Exact sizes are unavailable right now since I'm @ my Boss's house right now.
But is there anyway around this problem? I only have CS, so I can't use Genuine Fractals,
I think the software is called. And I don't have the money to upgrade to CS3...

You can upsize to 11x14 without changing the resolution. Much has been posted about resizing & sharpening: Sticky: -= Post Processing Tutorials List =-
I only specify 300 when I downsize a print.

That's expected. As the final step, sharpening requires a bit of VooDoo science. I sharpen every shot, & sometimes just a part of every shot, with different settings. how it looks on a wall is the best way to judge results.