Composing an outdoor

[pedromau]

Hi!

Don't know if it's the right forum to post this... but here it goes.

I've designed a poster (68x98 cm - 180dpi - Photoshop CS4) and I was asked to build an outdoor with 4meters x 3 meters.

How can I build that using same composition without loosing resolution? can I use 72 dpi for an outdoor?
What about pixel aspect ratio? I know nothing about that.

Thanks in advance

 

[lfelton]

You might want to cross post this in the Wide Format and Inkjet Discussion?

We used to do a lot of large bus shelter posters and similar and of course, the photos were very low resolution by the time that they were printed at the right size. However, we found that when used at the right distance, resolutions as low as 85dpi looked fantastic. Of course they looked pixellated / grainy when you were right next to them, but at a few meters (the intended viewing distance) they were perfect. The text, of course, needs to be vector!

I hope that helps, but someone with more experience in the "Wide Format and Inkjet Discussion" may have a better answer.

 

[Colorblind]

We design a lot of these and usually, the outdoor printer will supply you complete specs including final size, scaled artwork size you should provide along with recommended resolution at artwork size. As lfelton explained, you will usually end up with final resolution lower than 100 dpi which is normal since you view these at far distance.

 

[claude72]

I've designed a poster (68x98 cm - 180dpi - Photoshop CS4)

Photoshop is not the right software for this job: better use InDesign or XPress to keep the text in vector mode...

and I was asked to build an outdoor with 4meters x 3 meters.

In France, 4 x 3 meters that are silk-screens printed use a 15 lpi ruling map... and generally printers ask for a 1/10th (= 40 x 30 cm) file at 300 ppi.

(Your 68 cm width picture reduced to 40 cm will give you an output resolution of 306 ppi...)