How large can you go and still have a sharp photo?

[CanaanBill]

As some of you suggest, "sharpness" is in the eye of the viewer. I printed an 8-foot long panorama from a Mavic1 that looks great from about 4 feet. For up-close sharpness, printers want 300 dpi. A 20 MP camera has roughly 5,000 horizontal lines/pixels/dots, depending on your reference, which, spread over 7 feet (84 inches) would come to about 60 [things] per inch. From 4-feet, this would likely look just fine...the closer you get, the fuzzier it will appear. BTW, an on-line printing service will charge about $15 per square foot for that print.

 

[Cymruflyer]

No ... you can't get a good seven foot print from the Mavic's camera.
Try looking at your image on Photoshop or similar and see how things look when you enlarge the image past 100%.

When you enlarge an image you do not keep looking at it the same distance as you would, for example, a small 6x4 inch print, or a 10x8. Look at a billboard, that looks great from the road, but if you were to stand a foot away from it, the area you are viewing would look crap, filled with dots.

Therefore, when going bigger, as big as the OP suggests, you do not hold this image at arms length to view it. You step back and see the whole photo. Therefore do not confuse enlarging past 100% as to how sharp and image will look because nothing looks sharp when you start going 2-3-400% zoomed in, because we do not view it that close.

 

[Cymruflyer]

Please don’t listen to any advice you’ve heard here so far. You’ve been getting information concerning the size of digital files images. However, I assume you are talking about a print which is an analog device. A photo printer use your 20 MP image to make any size photo print that machine is capable of making.

All a printer does is converts your digital file into a small negative and when the machine shines a light through the negative it exposes photo paper. Moving the negative and light further away from the photo paper casts a wider ray of light hence enlarging your photo!

I think people here must be thinking of alpha printers which aren’t meant to print photos as they are really crappy quality. On the other hand if you want to go all out you can get a large format inkjet print done by a professional printer but that costs hundreds of dollars and you just give the file to the printer and they will do what ever is nessesary and is best with their printer. That’s their job that’s why you pay them so much.

By far the most common form of photo printing is Photographic Printing, meaning using photo paper and a negative. Walmart, Target, Walgreens you name it this is the only kind of printing they do.

Ummm, although you are correct in your first part of your message, you are quite incorrect on the rest of it regarding negatives.

Negatives have not been used, for the most part, by the general public, for many years. And I doubt if you will find any Walmarts, or Targets or Walgreens that will have a machine that prints from negatives anymore. They all now use digital printers which read digital files and use spray nozzle inkjet printers. Times changed a long time ago regarding printing.

As for making enlargements, yes there are any number of Pro Labs out there that can give you a very good 5 feet or 7 feet image, as long as you have a high quality original file to print from. And remember, you do not view an image that size at arms length, like you might a little 10x8 print.

If you need a Pro Lab for a print, PM me and I will give you a list of labs I use in my photography business. As for going bigger with your own file on your home computer, there are several programmes that do an excellent job of up resing an image file, to allow you to print larger images from a smaller file. Though, no one is going to have a printer in their home for a print 5 feet in size, that will have to go to a Pro Lab.

 

[Jackcutrone]

That was some discussion

 

[Ralph thompson]

You should visit a professional lab because the answer is, "just depends what type of print you want". If you're wanting just a poster then you'd have no problem (posters are very low res., 72 dpi or less), if you want a high quality photo print then you need 240 dpi minimum. However up-sizing algorithms found in Photoshop are very good. I have a 6' high print in my living room captured with a 6 megapixel camera and it is perfect even to the most critical eye.
Also dont forget you can do blended panoramas with yr mavic. The stabilization is so good that even in gusts, your camera is held very still. I have an I1Pro and often blend together as many as 30 (or more) photographs to get a huge pano using PTGui or Lightroom. Just make sure you have plenty of overlap (30 deg is good) These blended images could be printed the size of a house in photo quality.

 

[dixter]

Here is the proper solution for the OP's original question....
you can make your photo as large and in focus as you want.... 600%
and the printers that are used for bill boards/raps are not the same as the printers in your office/home...
The software required to upscale your picture is here... A.I. Gigapixel – Topaz Labs
The software required to focus your picture is here.... Sharpen AI – Topaz Labs

you can download both to try out if you want... they both work very well on your photos...

If you are interested in the printers then the trade show is THE NBM SHOW | Expand Your Cross Market Opportunities and the next show is in
Irving, Texas... March 28-30 ... There are other future/site dates shown also... if you have never been to one of the NBM trade shows then you might like it... very cool that they show you how to make all of the stuff at the show...

 

[Photo Beaty]

This discussion has been very interesting to me. I bought a 47 megapixel Nikon D850 because I greatly enjoy large prints. The Mavic 1 photos were fine but only marginal for me. However, the Mavic 2 pro has been a joy. I have hanging in my dining room a metal print from a Mavic 2 pro single dng file. It is 24 x 36 inches and the details of this canyon/cliffs/roadway are so sharp that people often walk up to it and remark on the detail with their face only a few inches from the print.

 

[Thoraldus]

Personally, I believe the viewing distance is the critical factor in this question. For a print that is 5'x7', the minimum distance should probably be about 20' or so. With good upsampling software, you can certainly get to the maximum pixel dimensions Brett mentioned regarding his neighbor. I don't know what dpi their gear can do but I believe at that minimum distance or greater, the print would look just fine. Think billboards.

THIS is the correct answer. When enlarging images to poster size and larger, viewing distance becomes a prime consideration. as KMB says above, "Think Billboards"

 

[Thoraldus]

Just wondering if you can go to something like 5 feet by 7 feet on a photo you take with a mavic 2 pro with a sharp picture? If not, what about a phantom? I guess the next step up would be a inspire?

If viewed from 12 feet distance or more it should look fine.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I make prints as part of my living, and one thing nobody has mentioned so far is the print medium, which makes a huge difference. Canvas in particular is probably the most forgiving print medium, where something like coated aluminium would be one of the least forgiving mediums (but looks amazing). A 60ppi print on canvas viewed at the right distance can still look great, but viewing distance is a key consideration. Gallery quality is the benchmark at 300ppi, designed to stand up to close viewing and scrutiny.

It's also not all about megapixels, as megapixels are not created equal. A 12MP image from a crappy 1/2.3" sensor is not going to look anywhere near as good as an image from a 12MP FF DSLR, for example. Lens quality and aperture choice (avoiding diffraction) along with sharpening methods and other processing techniques have an enormous impact on the final print, and can make all the difference if you are already pushing size boundaries.

Specifically talking about the M2P, you're looking at a maximum print size of about 12" X 18" before quality will start to noticeably go the other way from a ppi standpoint. You can mitigate quality loss or make it less noticeable though processing, using upres software (i.e. Topaz Gigapixel), changing the print medium, mounting it in a way that increases the viewing distance, etc.

You can definitely get a 5-7 foot print out of a M2P, and it can look really good too depending on the print medium, processing expertise and viewing distance.

 

[dixter]

Apple printed out a picture from an iphone and mounted it on the side of a sky scrapper in downtown Dallas... its at least over 100 feet tall and it looks good even if you stand 5 feet away from it...

 

[paulatkin73]

You can definitely get a 5-7 foot print out of a M2P, and it can look really good too depending on the print medium, processing expertise and viewing distance.

for a billboard type of a print it would be a 30-15 ppi final output. so, with 30ppi it would need a 1800x2520 image min. so, a 20mp image is more than enough, obviously.
if the ask here was to print a 5x7 foot media at 300ppi gallery quality - that would be a whole different ballgame. difficult to imagine who and why would want or need something like that. 18000x25200 - it is a 453megapixles roughly. may be some 4x5 full format scanning digital backs can do that, but i do not think so.

15 years ago we were doing billboards using 6mp or 8 mp cameras and it did work just fine. time goes fast.

 

[dixter]

This might answer some questions... GRAPHIC IMAGE DISPLAY PRINTING | Visigraph

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

You can enlarge your photo from the Mavic with your editing program or a program designed to resize a photo such as PhotoZoom Pro 7. Here is an example. The original with a crop and a resized copy of the crop to 300%. zoom in and look at the difference. None. The file names will give you the size info.

 

[rhberg]

"AI Gigapixel" from Topaz Labs (A.I. Gigapixel – Topaz Labs) is a means for increasing your digital image size using machine learning, according to their web site. I have tried it out with some (non-drone) images so far and it looks promising. It is better at enlarging digitial images than those interpolating functions in Photoshop but I only got the software two days ago and have not had a chance to make prints.

 

[HoozierDroneDaddy]

Another option is stacking, but it sounds like he already has the image he want's to use. For those not familiar, Stacking is taking multiple shots of the same subject (ie. setting the camera to take 7 shot bursts, then shoot maybe 3 or 4 times so you have 21-28 copies of the photo, then in photoshop, stack all of the photos into one image, it esentially takes your 20mp photo and turns it into a 40 or 50 mp or larger. But there is amazingly more detail and you can blow it up much larger. Google "Photo Stacking" or "Mega Pixel" in youtube for how to and samples.

 

[paulatkin73]

"AI Gigapixel" from Topaz Labs (A.I. Gigapixel – Topaz Labs) is a means for increasing your digital image size using machine learning, according to their web site. I have tried it out with some (non-drone) images so far and it looks promising. It is better at enlarging digitial images than those interpolating functions in Photoshop but I only got the software two days ago and have not had a chance to make prints.

company i used to work many years ago had, as one of the services, a 3000dpi scan of a 8x10 large format film media, on a big pro grade scanner, not a table top toy. that was producing quite some nice looking files, it was used for architectural work and catalogs. but, majority of media was shot in 645 format. that was before everybody switched to digital backs...

anyway, bottom line is, when anybody talks about custom printing - the proofing needs to be custom tailored for the target printer device - in the expected DPI and expected color space. devil is in details.

 

[brett8883]

Another option is stacking, but it sound like he already has the image he want's to use. For those not familiar, Stacking is taking multiple shots of the same subject (ie. setting the camera to take 7 shot bursts, then shoot maybe 3 or for times so you have 21-28 copies of the photo, then in photoshop, stack all of the photos into one image, it esentially takes your 20mp photo and turns it into a 40 or 50 mp or larger. But there is amazingly more detail and you can blow it up much larger. Google "Photo Stacking" or "Mega Pixel" in youtube for how to and samples.

I usually call that super resolution and it does work. I think the Mavic 2 zoom actually has that as one of its photo modes

 

[paulatkin73]

I usually call that super resolution and it does work. I think the Mavic 2 zoom actually has that as one of its photo modes

well, it is same as to stitch a panorama - a composite image from multiple exposures. it is not really fair and usually on a stitched image like that you would still see the imperfections and shadows and light diffs - it is not the same as a single correct exposure done from the same angle. of course, it depends upon what the goal is.

 

[CanadaDrone]

I usually call that super resolution and it does work. I think the Mavic 2 zoom actually has that as one of its photo modes

The M2Z Super Resolution mode is just a simple panorama, and the results are quite poor unfortunately, mostly due to the sensor limitations. You can do the exact same thing with any other drone very easily, even though it may not have a specific mode for it.