I know that there are many excellent photographers in this forum...so I thought I'll ask this question here.

Please suggest a good website/shop to make 16x20" (poster size) print of a digital photo (2560x1920). I do not want to spend too much money and also the quality should be good enough to frame it and hang it in my living room.

Try Ofoto.com. They are a little more pricey than some others, but they are run by Kodak and any of the poster sized prints I have purchased from them have been really high quality.

:nod:

Resolution of the camera that took the picture is of paramount importance. If I remember correctly, 2560x1920 equates to 5.0 Megapixel. Anything over 8x10 at 4.0~5.0 Megapixel may not turn out to be perfectly photo quality. I know that if I print my photos (from my 4.0 MP digital SLR) larger than 8x10, you can start to see the limitations of the photo quality. You might be pushing it, trying to get 16x20 from a 5.0 MP camera. Call them and see what they say; again, I don't normally print larger than 8x10 so I can't say if your picture will have the quality you'd be happy with.

Thanks for pointing that out....I searched ofoto and found this:

To get high-quality prints in variety of sizes, Ofoto recommends your photos have at least the following minimum resolutions:

Wallet-size prints - 320 x 240 pixels minimum (actual image size: 2 x 3")
4 x 6" print - 640 x 480 pixels
5 x 7" print - 1024 x 768 pixels
8 x 10" print - 1536 x 1024 pixels
16 x 20" print - 1600 x 1200 pixels
20 x 30" print - 1600 x 1200 pixels

I'll try few more sites and confirm this.

Resolution of the camera that took the picture is of paramount importance. If I remember correctly, 2560x1920 equates to 5.0 Megapixel. Anything over 8x10 at 4.0~5.0 Megapixel may not turn out to be perfectly photo quality. I know that if I print my photos (from my 4.0 MP digital SLR) larger than 8x10, you can start to see the limitations of the photo quality. You might be pushing it, trying to get 16x20 from a 5.0 MP camera. Call them and see what they say; again, I don't normally print larger than 8x10 so I can't say if your picture will have the quality you'd be happy with.

To get high-quality prints in variety of sizes, Ofoto recommends your photos have at least the following minimum resolutions:

16 x 20" print - 1600 x 1200 pixels
20 x 30" print - 1600 x 1200 pixels



To get truly high quality photographic prints you'd want to print at 300 DPI. 4800x6000 would be necessary to get a 16x20 (16x300=4800, 20x300=6000) of high quality. I will not print anything at less than 150 DPI- the quality will be too low.

Something else to keep in mind is that if your image is 1920x2560, that is not the correct aspect ratio to create a 16x20 or an 8x10- you will need to crop it. At 300 DPI your uncropped image will produce a print of 8.53 x 6.4. You need to resize to 240 DPI to get 10.68x8 (or 120 DPI to get 21.3x16) and then crop off the extraneous part.

a 1920x2560 image resampled to 240 DPI then cropped to exactly 8x10 looks excellent. Resampling to 120 and crop to 16x20 will show a loss of quality, but may still be passable.

Thanks Andi for that info. I understand that the resolution of my digital picture is not good enough to make a 16x20 print. I had also taken the same picture using my analog camera (Canon rebel 2000). Using the negative can I make a 16x20 print that is of good quality.

To get truly high quality photographic prints you'd want to print at 300 DPI. 4800x6000 would be necessary to get a 16x20 (16x300=4800, 20x300=6000) of high quality. I will not print anything at less than 150 DPI- the quality will be too low.

Something else to keep in mind is that if your image is 1920x2560, that is not the correct aspect ratio to create a 16x20 or an 8x10- you will need to crop it. At 300 DPI your uncropped image will produce a print of 8.53 x 6.4. You need to resize to 240 DPI to get 10.68x8 (or 120 DPI to get 21.3x16) and then crop off the extraneous part.

a 1920x2560 image resampled to 240 DPI then cropped to exactly 8x10 looks excellent. Resampling to 120 and crop to 16x20 will show a loss of quality, but may still be passable.

Just a quick update. I sent my 5 MP photo to OFOTO and got it enlarged to 16x20". The print is excellent and its now hanging in my living room!! I'm not sure at what DPI they printed it but I do not see any noise in the print. Anyways I'm happy with my print and thanks to all who adviced me in this thread