Making a 6-foot banner

[magical_Charm15C3]

Hi, there, first time here, I think. I'm usually on the Dreamweaver Forum.

I was hired to do an ebook cover, no problem. Then the client wanted a poster, again no problem. Now they want a 6-foot banner. The original photo I was provided with is 10" x 13", 3000 px x 4000 px, 300dpi. My design has text over the photo, of course, which is no problem at 6 feet. I opened the PS file in Illustrator and scaled it to 72", and it looks fine on the screen. Will this print out OK at 6 feet? Thanks.

[magical_Charm15C3]

It can't be that easy, can it? There must be something I'm missing. I'm using CS5.

[Bo_LeBeau]

When you scaled this photo in Illustrator did you scale it proportionally?

Scaling proportionally the 13" dimension to 72" also makes the 10" dimension approx 54"

Without resampling the photo, the resolution will drop to 54 ppi. This might be a bit low, but it depends on the viewing distance.

Something hung from the rafters and only viewed from 20 ft away may look fine.

But if the client is expecting people to see the banner from only a few feet away, then the banner will appear pixelated from the lower resolution.

The client may not understand this and be upset when he first sees the finished banner. You might need to explain the resolution vs viewing distance issue before going to print.

The text issue is also something to consider. If the text is added in illustrator it should be ok,

But if the text is in the Photoshop document (and has NOT been rasterized or flattened) you should save it as a Photoshop PDF to keep live text as vectors to print sharp.

The PSD format can keep vector text sharp when printing DIRECTLY from Photoshop.

But if it is placed in another application such as InDesign or Illustrator, if needs to be saved as a Photoshop PDF.

[magical_Charm15C3]

Thanks for the help. I can do the text in Illustrator, so no problem. Should I scale the image in PS before I put it Illustrator? For that matter, should I be doing this job in InDesign? I'm not printing it, I'm emailing it to the client, and I'll explain about the viewing distance. So should I save the full sized Illustrator/InDesign document as a PDF to send to the client? I doubt she has Illustrator.

It's been a few years since I worked in print design; I've been doing mostly web stuff lately.

[Guest]

If you can do it, scale the job 50% ( 27.5" x 36" ), save the image at 200ppi at the 50% size.  The final banner will be scaled up 200%, so the image resolution will be 100ppi.  That's plenty of resolution for a grand format inkjet printer.  Do not forget about the document resolution.  I'd set that at 1200dpi.  I see no reason to go to ID for this.  Ai is all you need, along with PS.  But, if you insist, do it in ID.  I recently did a 10' x 18' banner scaled to 25% in Ai with 300ppi Placed images.  I also had a nice Blend setup and it came out  fabulous.  The final output was set for 400% and the immages ended up having a resolution of 75ppi. Very nice run with no problems.

[magical_Charm15C3]

Thanks, John. So I would end up saving it as a print quality PDF to email to the client?

[Guest]

What I do is create 2 files: 1.) print PDF, and 1.) screen view PDF.  I send the screen view PDF to the client.  But, I do it in a roundabout way.  I Export the print file as a .tif; medium res @ RGB out of Ai.  The reason I do this is because I do not want them to be able to open it and mess around with the file.  In PS, I save it as an RGB PDF.  The file is smaller than the print PDF, but with no discernable differences from the print PDF ( which is in CMYK color mode ).

[Bo_LeBeau]

I'm an InDesign guy myself but you can do this in Illustrator, no problem. InDesign has more refined text controls, but if this is a banner there probably isn't that much text to worry about.

Since you are emailing the file to the client you should definitely export as a PDF.

It would probably be best to create the banner at the final output size rather than creating it half size and telling them to enlarge it 200% when printing.

There are far too many chances for miscommunication between you, the client. the printer and the actual person at the printers who will print the banner.

Better to be at the final size; they can just hit print, and have less worries about it being printed at the wrong size.

The photo; is it an important part of the design, ex. a photograph showing a person or machine part that needs to be clear & sharp?

Or is it just a background image and the sharpness less of an issue?

As you now have a 10 x13 image at 300 ppi, that stretched to 72 x 54 will knock the resolution down to 54 ppi.

That is lower res and I would upsample it in Photoshop. You need to decide how sharp you want the image to print taking into account the whole viewing distance issue.

PLACE your image in either InDesign or Illustrator but make sure you use File Menu, PLACE. Don't cut & paste  or drag it in, always use place.

This will create a link to your image, (DO NOT EMBED)

Create your text and then Export/Save (depending on application) as a PDF.

Good Luck!

[Guest]

Whenever I work with large format documents, I always ask the printer what they recommend as the quality differs with equipment. You can test at 100% on a small size. The other thing I do is create my Illustrator doc 25% and ask the printer to print it 400%. I don't worry about miscommunication, because if the printer gets it wrong, they will have to reprint.

[magical_Charm15C3 · Accepted solution]

Lots of opinions, thanks to all. I guess the safest thing to do is to communicate with the printer, if I can. I worked at Kinko's about 10 years ago, and making oversized prints was really a nightmare.. They never came out right the first couple tries.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I opened the PS file in Illustrator and scaled it to 72", and it looks fine on the screen.

Say what?

Is the text set in Photoshop or Illustrator?

With a banner that size I would assume that 72ppi effective resolution should suffice – to check if the image povides that change the resolution or size with Image > Image Size with »Resample Image« unchecked.