MASSIVE IMAGE!!!

Talk about Pixelmator Pro, share tips & tricks, tutorials, and other resources.
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2018-05-19 17:55:01

Hi. I need to construct a canvas that can be used to print an image 13 metres by 5 metres in high quality.

Can anyone give me some pointers as this exceeds the maximum canvas size.

Thanks
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2018-05-20 09:56:29

Hi Jarrod.

I've never worked with anything that big but there are a few things I'd look at if I did:

1. If it's being physically printed I'd look for guidance from person printing it: the kind of ppi and file size they would expect. There's no point creating a file that is too big for your printer to handle.

2. If this is being viewed from a distance (e.g. a billboard) then the resolution may not need to be as high as you think. If on the other hand, if people are walking right up to it then it might have to be very high. The angular resolution of the human eye is about 0º 1' 0'' or so. This corresponds to a pixel size of about 3mm at 10m (about 4500px across for your image) or 0.3mm at a metre (about 45000px across for your image). (assuming my maths works.) (handy calculator here: https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/min ... alculator/ even if it only works in inches)

3. I'd look at tiling the image. There may be convenient breaks in the image and your printer may be able to stitch them together. Again I'd seek advice from the printer as they're likely to be dealing with this kind of issue fairly regularly.

4. If the image can be constructed with shapes and text, I'd consider using a vector-based app (sorry Pixelmator) as this won't care about size in pixels. I'd check that you can export a file that your printer can handle before going down this path, though.

Hope this helps. Let me know how it goes?

- Stef.
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2018-05-21 15:25:56

Stef's advice is spot on (as per usual). :heart_eyes:

(I'll just ignore that bit about not using Pixelmator :sob:).