Image file size too large?

I went to Sam's Club today to have a 16" x 20" and a 20" x 30" poster printed up but their machines could not process the files because they were too large. I created them at the desired print size (16" x 20" & 20" x 30") and saved them on a CDR at 300 and 235 dpi respectively. The 16" x 20" is a 13.4 mb file while the 20" x 30" is a 16.5 mb file.

When it became apparent that I would have to resize the images to have them printed up there, I asked them how large a file their machines could handle. They could not tell me. Therefore I am going to have to try different file sizes until we figure out what the maximum is.

What I need to know is, which will give me the best image quality? Lowering the resolution, changing the print size (for example saving the file I want printed up as a 16" x 20" as an 8" x 10" instead), or a combination of the two? Thanks!

First of all, this tells you a lot about Sam's Club printing.

1) The techs don't know enough about their machines
2) The machines can't handle file sizes appropriate file sizes for large prints

I would set up a test print at 11x14 to see how the print quality is. Try setting up one of the files at 200 dpi at size. Then crop an 11x14 chunk and have it printed. That will tell you how well their printer handles the necessary interpolation. Chances are, it does a pretty good job.

On the other hand, knowing how little they know, maybe you should look for a more serious, experienced place to get prints done? You might pay a bit more. But you will be more sure about the quality and you should get more help from the service techs. A good printer should know their machines inside and out.

Check out mpix.com. I've never used them for anything beyond 8 X 10, but they do seem quite professional.

I have had 20x30s printed at Sams Club and they turned out excellent. I was very impressed. I happen to get a club that has photo techs that are helpful and knowledgable. I did not check the Sams Club web site yet, but they have a q/a section that lists some of the file sizes ect. I will check and see if they have any info that will be helpful. But the psoters are pretty nice if you are looking for "posters". They print on poster paper, not Fuji Crystal Archive or the like... If you are looking for a 20x30 on photo paper, Mpix is pretty nice and very reasonable.

Hope this helps..
Phil

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

First of all, this tells you a lot about Sam's Club printing.

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Absolutely! I have had a bunch of prints made at a grocery store with their Fuji Frontier (up to 10x15, so the machine you're talking about is different) and the results are excellent and very inexpensive. They don't know much about the stuff either, it took a bit of experimenting on my part to get what I wanted and that included changing the Canvas Size in Photoshop to make a non-standard image size within their standard print sizes.

If it were me in this case, I'd find a local, more knowledgeable printer. There is a camera store here in town with the big Epson printers who has made prints for me with very large files that I saved as TIFF's (didn't know any better at the time) so they were down right huge. No complaints from them. Mpix has always been good to deal with for me but I haven't ordered anything larger than 8x12.

The paper will make a difference too - a poster might not be the quality you're looking for, at least not as good as "real" paper.

Here is what I ended up doing:

I resized my image files by resolution and by size, I burned different sized versions onto a CD and then took it to Sam's to see which was the largest their machines could handle. The one which was originally 16" x 20" and 300 dpi worked when I reduced it's size to 12" x 25" (still at 300 dpi) and when I reduced the resolution to 250 dpi (still at 16" x 20"). The file sizes on these two dropped from 13.4 mbs to 8.42 & 9.94 mbs respectively.

The one which was originally 20" x 30" and 235 dpi worked when I reduced it's size to 15" x 22" (still at 235 dpi) and when I reduced the resolution to 200 dpi (still at 20" x 30"). The file sizes on these two dropped from 13.7 mbs to 10.6 & 12.9 mbs respectively.

I ended up using the lower resolution versions and had them printed up. At $6.34 for the 16" x 20" and $11.66 for the 20" x 30" size I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw the final results. I have since showed the posters to others and they all had very nice things to say about them.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that they could do these poster sized prints in one hour! That sure beats the 7 days or so it was taking me to get them in before.

Now that I know all of this, I am certain that I will be having more poster sized prints made up at Sam's Club in the future.

Thanks for the follow-up info. That's very useful. I would still encourage you to get a print made at a really high-end printer, just to see how it differs.

I think Sam's Club uses Epson wide format printers. I think they are Style Pro 9800 or possibly a Canon equiv. I have seen the one near my house, but cannot remember if it was a Canon or Epson. If you call them, they will tell you what they have if it is going to matter to your set up.