Printing a digital image as a poster

chases0102

Hi folks,

Not entirely sure this is the right place for my query, but if anyone could advise or point me in right direction, it would be greatly appreciated.

I wish to create an A2 poster from an image I have saved digitally. I know Snap printing are an option, but they are of the opinion that the image is of poor quality, and that it needs to be converted to a high resolution PDF first.

Would anyone know of any options I could explore?

Cheers.

Paulw

Is it your own image? Simply resize it for print.

chases0102

It's not my own image, it's taken from the Internet. Would like to print the image for a classroom.

Paulw

The contact the copyright owner and ask for a print.

DaireQuinlan

There are copyright exemptions for educational use which might apply to the OP, so there's no need to be so quick to judge :-D

Any which way, if you have a large enough resolution image it should print ok, other wise it'll look blocky and pixellated. The suggestion that converting it to a 'high resolution PDF' would somehow solve the problem is pretty weird and borderline nonsensical. What resolution is the image you have ?

Paulw

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

There are copyright exemptions for educational use which might apply to the OP, so there's no need to be so quick to judge :-D

Wasn't judging, just saying that the copyright holder would have or be able to provide a proper resolution file that would be fit to print A2.

chases0102

No idea what resolution is - contacted a printing company who told me they couldn't guarantee the quality of the poster unless I convert it to high resolution pdf

TheChizler

chases0102 wrote: »

No idea what resolution is - contacted a printing company who told me they couldn't guarantee the quality of the poster unless I convert it to high resolution pdf

Could you link to the image in question?

Kenny Logins

chases0102 wrote: »

No idea what resolution is - contacted a printing company who told me they couldn't guarantee the quality of the poster unless I convert it to high resolution pdf

If the image is low resolution, you can't do much other than print it and see how it looks, you can get away with lower quality/resolution on a poster as the viewing distance is greatly increased.

CabanSail

There are copyright exemptions when images are being used for educational purposes.

The problem will be that it will be unusual for images with enough resolution to print that large to be available online.

A2 is about 30 x 23 inches.

Most print companies like to print at 300dpi. To do this the image would have to be 9000 x 6900 pixels. Depending on the image you can get away with a lot lower resolution, as long as it's not for close inspection. Going down to 100dpi still requires an image of 3000 x 2300 pixels. Still well above most images online. Up scaling will help a bit but not much.

The best advice I can offer is to make contact with the copyright owner and explain that you would like to use the image for educational purposes. Outline how it will be used and explain that there is a copyright exemption. Then request permission to use it and a high resolution copy or a suitable print. Offer to pay reasonable costs involved. Most people will assist.

If you don't know the pixel count can you tell us the file size as that will give us a clue.

magicbastarder

i'm not sure the educational exemption would apply in this scenario; afaik, it relates to quoting passages from works in exam questions and the like, rather than printing posters.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'm not sure the educational exemption would apply in this scenario; afaik, it relates to quoting passages from works in exam questions and the like, rather than printing posters.

I'm not entirely sure

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/28/enacted/en/print#sec53
"Acts done for purposes of instruction or examination."

Seems to cover the act of printing out a copyright covered work for educational purposes. OTOH I'm no lawyer so I could be completely off-base...

-edit-

Here's some interpretation from Trinity, or at least how they apply the act...
https://www.tcd.ie/Library/about/copyright.php#TeachingMaterials

"There is no quantitative limit in such circumstances but please note that such copying may not be reprographic (i.e. photocopied or scanned) - the content has to be, for example, retyped."

That's specifically to do with section 53 above, so I have no idea how that applies to printing out a digital copy of the image

magicbastarder

well, you could argue (maybe not convincingly) that saving a copy of a file to your computer is taking a direct copy from the original, so does that count as reprographic?

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

well, you could argue (maybe not convincingly) that saving a copy of a file to your computer is taking a direct copy from the original, so does that count as reprographic?

But your browser already caches the images it retrieves as you browse the net, and that's long been established as not being an infringement :-D

CabanSail

It's all semantics. Contacting the copyright owner is still the best thing to do.