ctasker Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 Hi Anyone used to producing renders for the purpose of printing onto Billboard. I have been asked if i can produce a rendering to be printed on a billboard 8 feet by 4 feet. How high do i need the resolution to be so that the image would look convincing at this scale? Also are there any techniques for managing the rendering of a very large file to minimize risk of crashing my machine? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 eh....didn't you ask this question a few minutes ago? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted September 1, 2005 Share Posted September 1, 2005 I've done boards this big and bigger and I would usually use a DPI of 50 to 70 depending on who's going to be viewing the board. If people are driving by it at high speed I would use a lower DPI than if people were going to be walking by it. The best way to keep everything safe would be to use network rendering and the split scan line option which will split your image up into strips, if one machine crashes another will pick it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chow choppe Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 hi maxer.... can u tell us more about this strip rendering thing... even i need a render of 35' x 15'... and i also have no idea about what resolution and what dpi... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MegaPixel Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 If you know the Billboard Size (35'x15') and your target resolution (Let's say 70) then here's your formula: 420" (35') x 70 = 29400pixels 180" (15') x 70 = 12600pixels The overall pixel dimensions of your billboard rendering should be 29400x12600. As far as splitting your rendering up goes, I havn't figured out a way to automate it yet. I've been manually "Crop" rendering slices of my large scenes and sending them to the backburner making sure that I overlap slightly so that I can reassemble them without a hitch in Photoshop. There's also a way to use Region Rendering but I havn't figured it out yet. Oh, and make sure Photoshop has plenty of memory for the final assembly of this image Hope this helps - MegaPixel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chad Warner Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 In the network rendering dialog, there is an option to "split scanlines" that will break the image up into strips and then automatically assemble them into a single image. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chow choppe Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 thanks megapixel and others for the info... so u mean that i don't need to render at 300 dpi...(which i generally do) secondly i wud like to ask that is there any way to render split images on a single pc... thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 300 dpi is great for an image you hold in you hand. The further the printed piece is away from your eyes the larger the dots can be. You can use backburner (you should use backburner) on a single pc. It will que your renderings for you so you can go to be and let the CPU work. However there is a default timout of 600 minutes. If your image takes longer that 10 hours it stops and restarts. Really bad feature. Make sure you clear that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 That time out default can be easily changed by going to the advanced tab under the network job assignment dialogue. Go to Per Job Timeouts and enable it, then enter the time in minutes under "wait for max to render". I would set a max number that you know your rendering will not go beyond, I usually set it for 1440 minutes or 24 hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ernest Burden III Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 A client just informed me they were going to put up a banner using one of my renderings -- 20 feet! Do I have a higher resolution version, they asked? Well, no. I render at 2800 lines, so that what we got. I don't want the client upset, but then I'm not re-rendering at 28,000 lines, either. What I responded with: The renderings are produced at a size that yeilds 100 dpi @ 27". Now if you scale up the effective meaningful resolution of a 35mm negative, it would be about 200 - 250 dpi @ 27", so I'm not so far off. I don't know what the effective dpi is of a banner printer, but then the print is not meant to be seen closeup. A very low dpi should work. I see that at 240" the rendering will be 12 dpi, which isn't much, but each pixel will be 1/12 of an inch, so it's not a LEGO abstraction either. You can resample the renderings up in Photoshop, which will smooth them a bit, but you aren't going to make that much of a difference. Better to let a printer driver resample. They're good at that and targeted to a specific output device. A banner of 20' is quite a bit larger, of course. But I think it'll be fine because of the viewing distance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbarc Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 Completely with Ernest here. Viewing distance is the crucial thing! Generally speaking, this is roughly proportional to the size of the printed media and therefore one render size fits all. I would seriously look at how close punters are going to be scrutinising the image before you (and your poor machines) go through the ordeal of rendering tens of thousands of pixels across. It's probably unnecessary. The only exception we have had to this is a job we just completed involving 30 offices on a business park for which the client wanted a 20 foot aerial photomontage in the marketing suite. Because the agents and potential tenants were going to stand right next to it discussing individual buildings within the scheme, we ended up rendering at 16000 pixels across. It was a huge undertaking but like I say it was a one off. Most billboards are designed to be viewed from a moving car or across the road so 3-4k is fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sawyer Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 This is interesting. http://www.signindustry.com/outdoor/articles/2001-03-19-viewingDistance.php3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctasker Posted September 2, 2005 Author Share Posted September 2, 2005 Lots of good advice and info here, Appreciate everyone who made a contribution. Will be saving the thread for future reference. Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeraldH Posted September 2, 2005 Share Posted September 2, 2005 I have done images for billboards that resulted in 10 dpi at billboard size. Good Luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now