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A
artspell
Participant
October 17, 2017
Answered

Printing a 30 Foot Banner

  • October 17, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1994 views

Hello - I am using a Dell intel core i5 vpro computer and a Canon Imagegraf pro 4000s printer. I have a banner that was created with vector images in Adobe Illustrator. I have sized the banner to 40 inches by 360 inches at 300 dpi and when I try to print, my computer crashes every time. Can you help me figure out how to get this banner printed? Thanks

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Correct answer D Fosse

For large wall banners you can sometimes go as low as 20. It depends.

Consider this: a high-end, pro-level DSLR camera produces files at around 7500 pixels long side. This will work for anything, and no one will ever complain about the resolution. The thing is, it will be seen from much farther away. You'll want to take it all in, so you step back. That means the optical resolution stays the same.

If you want to be on the safe side, or for very special purposes, you might want to go up to 12000 or 15000. But anything above that is almost always overkill.

300 ppi is for book and magazine print, to be seen from less than arm's length.

2 replies

JJMack
Community Expert
JJMackCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 17, 2017

There is no good reason to print a 30 foot banner at a 300dpi resolution.  Printers print pixels not vectors.  Plotters can plot vectors.

so you are creating a document that is 40" tall and 30' wide at 300dpi.  That is 1,296,000,000Pixels uncompressed that is 3,888,000,000 bytes of data your sending to you printer 3.9GB. if you iinstead create your banner at a 100DPI resolution it will be 1/9 that size        432,000,000 bytes.

I would strongly suggest you try that,

JJMack
D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 17, 2017

Is this still a vector file? Or have you brought it into Photoshop as a pixel-based raster file?

If the latter, you now have a file of 108 000 pixels by 12 000 pixels. You'd need a Cray supercomputer at NASA (do they still make Crays?) to handle that.

You don't need 300 ppi at those sizes!  Overkill doesn't even begin to describe it.

A
artspellAuthor
Participant
October 17, 2017

Hilarious! thanks for the humor and the reply. Should we leave the file at 72 DPI? As you can tell we are novices -- no joke and trying to print a banner for a school that was created by students in Illustrator all the original art is Vector.

D Fosse
Community Expert
D FosseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
October 17, 2017

For large wall banners you can sometimes go as low as 20. It depends.

Consider this: a high-end, pro-level DSLR camera produces files at around 7500 pixels long side. This will work for anything, and no one will ever complain about the resolution. The thing is, it will be seen from much farther away. You'll want to take it all in, so you step back. That means the optical resolution stays the same.

If you want to be on the safe side, or for very special purposes, you might want to go up to 12000 or 15000. But anything above that is almost always overkill.

300 ppi is for book and magazine print, to be seen from less than arm's length.

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