enlarge pictures

[wahoo]

I have a digital camera { Canon XTI Rebel] it is a 10 mega pixel.I wanted to try a 11x 14 poster but the company says it is not recommended they say I should have at least 1260 x 990 pixels. Can someone explain this to me. Thanks

[Tim Fishell]

The more pixels in your picture the bigger you can enlarge it before it becomes blurry or pixelated.  So you need to take a large format picture if you are going to blow it up to make it look right.  That is why I take all my pics in large format.  You can always shrink the pixel size but never make add more.

[luv2bowhunt]

Wahoo - 10 Megapixels are more than enough... I have made 20 x 30 prints that are absolutely beautiful from a 6 MP Digital SLR and 11 x 14 from a 2 MP Digital SLR.

Are you shooting your images in RAW or JPEG? If JPEG, what size do you have it set to? Usually you can set it to take many different sizes depending on how small you want the file size. I always shoot in the largest size possible, flash memory is cheap nowadays so I don't worry about using small file sizes to save space. I always shoot in RAW mode as well and do all post processing in Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Photoshop CS3, much better control over the end result as opposed to letting the camera do the processing.

You can interpolate a small file size up to a larger size, but you can only do so much before you start to see different artifacts in the image.

From the sounds of it you need to shoot your photos at the largest size possible for your camera and also make sure that the compression setting you are using is for best quality and not best file size.

PM me if you need any more personal assistance.

Kevin.

[Snakeeater]

wahoo,

that 10 Megapixels is the maximum size image file you can create, but you may not be set up for that size. Your camera can take pictures at different levels of resolution. You may not have it set up to take pictures that have enough resolution (number of pixels in the image)to look good. Go into your menu system and play around to see what the different option are. In my Canon it talks about smoothness of lines for one of the parameters.

Good luck,

Snakeeater

[wahoo]

sorry been out of town. I ck the menu and it says I am using the setting for the best quality. I have some bigger frames and just wanted to go to a bigger size. I am using Snapfish, where or who do you use to develop pics? I am shooting jpeg. Thanks

[Tim Fishell]

I use Mpix to develop all my pics.  They have a great service and do fantastic work.

[paleFace]

wahoo, i used a 5.7 mp camera for an image that was used on a billboard(12ft x 18ft). your camera is capable of producing some huge prints you just need to make sure you have it set correctly. are you able to shoot RAW files or will it just shoot jpeg files?  

another issue could be in your post work. what program are you editing and saving your images?  

if you are really having a problem with this shoot me a pm i'd be more than happy to help you work through it.