Contrary to common belief it is not the resolution (the number of pixels per inch) which determines the size an image can be enlarged too, it is the overall number of pixels the image contains. In essence the more pixels the better.The good news is that most modern digital cameras take pictures with enough pixels in them to produce good prints. For a rough guide a 4 or 5 mega pixel camera picture can be enlarged up to at least 24 inches or 60 cm's and higher megapixels can create much bigger prints.

How can I tell how many pixels my picture has ?

Take the number of pixels in height and width your picture contains and divide by 100 this will tell you roughly how big you can print is in inches (a picture 1000 by 1000 pixel can be printed 10 inches by 10 inches). Most image editing software can provide this data for you.

Jpeg pictures are highly compressed formats and contain deceptively large amounts of pixels a 110 KB file can contain 10,000 pixels. To produce a 40 x 40 inch or 100 x 100 cm picture requires at least 4000 x 4000 pixels. As an uncompressed Tiff file this could be 50 megabytes in size as a compressed jpeg the same file could be 750kb less than 1 50th the size.

If in doubt please use our upload facility to send us your digital file and we will contact you and let you know how many pixels your picture contains and what size print can be achieved with your picture. Please type your query in the comments box and if you can leave a phone number we can reach you on.

What size print can I have ?

If your digital file is big enough we can produce pictures up to a width of forty inches or 100 centimeters so the largest square canvas or paper print we do is one meter square 100cms by 100cms which is about 40 inches. They can however be longer so we could cover an entire wall in meter wide strips. The more pixels in your photo the larger we can print it

What can I do with a small file ?

Our digital designers love a challenge and we can often find ways of working with small files. We can use software to add more pixels if the image is sharp enough . Alternatively sometimes turning the photo into vector art which uses shapes not pixels can allow a stunning piece of art to emerge from the smallest picture. If in doubt please use our upload facility to send us your digital file and we will contact you and let you know what can be achieved with your picture. Please type your query in the comments box and if you can leave a phone number we can reach you on.

What if I don't have a digital file only a paper print ?

# posted by Scarlet Ibis Art : 9:39 AM