Printing a 4k photo

[microsoftsam]

Hi

 

Is it possible to print a photo in 4k? If a printer can print the highest possible dots per inch what resolution equivalent could it print in for example 4k, 8k, 12k? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

You don't use the k term with printing, thats a term that was made for use with digital cinema.

 

Look at dpi on printers. Something like 600dpi is pretty common on a printer, so printing out a 8.5x11 piece of paper would be a resoluiton of 5100x6600.

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, microsoftsam said:

Is it possible to print a photo in 4k? If a printer can print the highest possible dots per inch what resolution equivalent could it print in for example 4k, 8k, 12k? 

That question doesn't make sense, you're not saying how many pixels-per-inch you are talking about. If you had 1 meter by 1 meter pixels, then yes, you could print that, but if you had 0.1 nanometer by 0.1 nanometer pixels, then no -- or at least I'm not aware of any printer with high enough resolution.

[WhitetailAni]

This is why resolutions are annoying.

You could have 480p on a 2 inch screen, and it would look great.

Yuu could also have 480p on a 96" screen, and it would look crap.

[Kisai]

11 minutes ago, microsoftsam said:

Hi

 

Is it possible to print a photo in 4k? If a printer can print the highest possible dots per inch what resolution equivalent could it print in for example 4k, 8k, 12k? 

This is not a logical question. 4K is the pixel resolution of the monitor. A 72ppi 4K monitor would be roughly 55" big for example. A 24" 4K monitor is 185ppi.

 

A 600dpi printer printing an 8x10 at 600dpi would need 4800x6000 pixels. 3840x2160 at 600dpi is 6.4"x3.6" which isn't a typical photo size.

 

The highest scanning and printing dpi available is usually 1200dpi (there are higher values like 6400x9600dpi but they stop making sense after 1200dpi as slides/film max out around 3000dpi, and then only if the photos were from 35mm film DSLR's on a tripod.)

 

Inkjet printers (and yes, even photo printing places) don't typically print anything higher than 300dpi. Anything higher is only available on laserjet printers or with special coated paper. Inkjets also produce the worst prints as they fade quickly. So the end result is that most prints are just wasted.

 

If you want to compromise and show "4K" photos to people on a large screen, then you're usually better off pre-scaling/cropping the photos to fit the 4K screen. Otherwise you have to spend money on a printer that can print to photo paper, and that just hasn't been worth while for the last decade.

[jones177]

A 4k screen is close to 300ppi at 8.5" X 11" so it is a good size to print on a standard inkjet printer or office color laser printer. 

 

I did 3D design for a living and rendered at screen sizes since my clients used 16:9 monitors. These images had to be printed on 8.5" X 11" and 11" X 17" as well.  Some of my designs had to be printed at 8" or 2.5m tall so then I dropped down to 150ppi. For billboards I used 15ppi since they were viewed from a long distance.

 

The thing to remember is to never resize your image when adjusting ppi

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Photography and Videography