How to make a poster sized (high quality) tiled image for under $5!

Have you ever wanted to get a poster of your favorite photo printed? I have. But I'm broke. Then I realized that you can make a very good looking poster sized image using a bunch of 4 x 6 photos.  

Step 1: Materials

-16  4 x 6 photos (from cvs, walgreens, etc...)
- Foam poster board (I used 22 x 28)
-Computer paper
-Straight edge 
-Ruler
-Pencil
-Elmer's spray adhesive glue

Comments

[omalachowski]

Great 'ible!

I want to mention that if you take your photos to a drugstore or instant shop, you should tell them to turn the color-correction off on their machine. Many of the instant-develop machines hit your photo with an auto-contrast, and each of the photos will come out differently, which will cause a weird look when assembled.

As for spacing, a drafting table with guide would be key to getting good lines. If you don't have one, maybe you could use tile spacers?
-Olaf

[michaelbain]

Thanks! You're right. One time I was doing something similar to this with a color photo, and the auto color from walgreens ruined it. Those are good ideas for alignment.

[lschwartz]

When you have a lot of pages to assemble, an aid is to make a print of the entire image (even in B&W) on regular paper. Mark lines to match the way the big print is chopped up, and then letter the individual squares with a row-column numbering scheme. As you print the final copies, keep track of the order in which you print them and write the row-column number on the back. This should guarantee getting the final prints in the proper order.

A gimmick, if the wall isn't solid and the image can handle it, might be to make a print with a "hole" in the image that surrounds the anomaly in the wall. An example might be a light switch that breaks up the "smooth" wall.

[dan and kon]

The slice tool can save you a lot of time dividing the image. Here is the basics behind it:

http://www.mediacollege.com/adobe/photoshop/tool/slice.html

[LeahYeah]

to divide the image... i would make a 4x6 document... and i would paste it onto your image... then id duplicate it a few times...

select the layers and use the align tools to make sure its all accurate... then all you have to do is hold ctrl and click on each of the 4x6 layers and hey presto you have selections and all :)

ok after reading over my post i understand this sounds like a lot of trouble... but thats what id do... because i absolutely hate measuring and re measuring things only to find out in the end ive got the measurements wrong xP

[michaelbain]

good idea!

[dBrez]

THIS IS AN AWESOMAZING POSTER! Perfect for empty wall spaces or just a taste for something different and not too mainstream. Thorough instructions and great attention to detail; beautiful finished product. Well done! :D

[LeahYeah]

ahhh... i love this as a gift idea.....
its something thatdoesnt cost a lot of money... but isnt cheap and thoughtless....
thanks for sharing!!

[michaelbain]

No problem :)

[pravs2k]

Beautiful.I'm going to try this though I am not very computer savvy.

Did you use a sealant after every thing was in place? I mean like Krylon spray matt varnish.Do you think it is necessary to protect the surface?

The tile effect is really very attractive.In fact I thought it was done on tile and thats why I opened this site first before checking all the others.

Thank you for the very clear instructions.

[michaelbain]

You should definitely try it. I'm not that computer savvy either. I didn't use any sealant, but would probably be a good idea.

Thanks! I would like to try this on actual tile sometime.

[Doganie]

It looks really good, but I think you might have accidentally switched the two middle tiles in the far left column.

[michaelbain]

Thank you! Yes I did... Every time I look at it I notice it now. But next time I'll make sure not to do it again!

[agis68]

very nice instructable....when i see the cat on the poster, u reminded me my beloved cat, wich we lost him from stroke....a couple of years now....i have same small pics under his favorite corner but this is what realy worth....I will make it as soon is possible.....thnx again

[michaelbain]

Thank you! Sorry about your cat. I've lost one too.

[letsneck]

This turned out very nice. One comment though, if you look closely at the very last picture of the completed project, you will notice that two of the 4 X 6 photos are out of place. Can you figure out which two? I do a lot of photo editing, so I picked it out very quickly. Great work though. This is an easy way to make nice artistic enlargements.

[michaelbain]

Oh no!! You're right... wish i noticed that before the glue dried. thanks, ill make sure not to do that again.

[susanrm]

My home photo printer does a better job than CVS or Walgreens. Plus I can see if I need to make any adjustments at home. But nice instructable. I thought from the look of it that you had found a way to print them on tile, which would be ultra cool.

[michaelbain]

printing them on tile would be very cool! i believe there is another instructable that shows how to do that.

[redtiger2]

Some of the "photo quality" spray adhesives will dry in my desert climate and photos will peel off in a few months. I use a good spray contact cement and so far my mounts that are about 10 years old are not showing signs of coming off or deterioration. I pay under $6 for a 16 x 20 inch poster at S--'- Club. A 16 x 20 inch from other places in town can be $30 or more. I use the do it yourself kiosk at the club and get 1 hour prints. Very high quality and spectacular color. I have won awards at the state fair and a professional photographer who was a judge said my large prints were much better than where he had his done.This article inspired me to make a wall sized poster with 16 x 20 prints. Always remember that cropping, altering contrast and brightness are the 3 simplest and most important things you can do to make your pictures spectacular. For competition prints, size matters, if it is worth printing and you want to win, print big!

[tn.]

*photo, even (not phone, that would be a whole other ible)

[tn.]

what about using lo-tack pinstriping, such as that used by painters? you can get them very thin (just a quick search and i've got 3mm, a little less than 1/8") use it to mark out the grid, apply adhesive to the phone but not all the way to the edge. once the photo has set, pull up the tape and secure the edges.

[zerfall]

You may want to make your 6x4 image at 300 dpi. That is the right resolution for printing to scale as long as you don't have to up scale the copied layer too much it will look much better, as long as you start with a large enough image.

[maazr]

COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL :]

[mrg2k8]

Or, you could use the free piece of software called the Rasterbator, which saves you a lot of work in Photoshop. You only need a high-res picture.

[Uncle Kudzu]

But the Rasterbator doesn't produce a continuous tone print, if I'm not mistaken. If I correctly understand this instructable, one wouldn't see the pattern of large dots that the Rasterbator makes at close range with this method.

[mrg2k8]

You can choose the dimension of the dots. I did a 2.5 x 1 meters poster and the dots aren't visible when you look at it from ~1 m. Yes, the program processes your image slower, but it's it doing the job, not you in PS :)

[Uncle Kudzu]

Thanks for the correction, then. I have an old Rasterbator image on my wall and the dots are pretty big. Perhaps I should re-familiarize myself with that process before I write about it next time. Thanks again.

[bmelton1]

There is a website that allows you to do the same thing for free as well if you do not have photoshop. www.blockposters.com
saves the final image as a multi page pdf and allows you to take it to kinkos on a flash drive to use up all their color ink.

[Uncle Kudzu]

Nicely done and good instruction!

If you print a little overlap, there is a way to splice a photo like this so that the grid effectively disappears - a little like splicing wallpaper patterns to match up. But the grid has its own graphic appeal, too.

[michaelbain]

Thanks! Yeah I liked the way the grid looked with just a little gap between the pictures. Looks cool either way though.

[CatTrampoline]

Outstanding! I like that you gave clear directions on how to create the effect in PhotoShop.

I have a large blank wall that could use something like this for dramatic effect.

[michaelbain]

Thank you! Go for it. I have a feeling my wall is going to be covered in photos now.

[bigwhitebear18]

I did a similar project on a slightly larger scale. I printed a panoramic I took on single-weight mat board 8x10s and hung them using Command strips. Now I have a massive 5ft x 2ft panoramic hanging on my wall. It isn't a straight as I would like but it looks good from a short distance. I'm sure yours is much straighter since it's on a smaller scale and a yard stick could be used to keep everything in place.

[michaelbain]

That looks really cool! great photo. Yeah it took me awhile to get mine straight, so I'm sure yours was hard. I'd like to try it on a larger scale sometime.