Urgent printing and framing of an A1 poster - any ideas?

[iceman]

Hi guys

I'm surprising my wife with a xmas present, but I fear I've left it too late.

I've made an A1 size collage (841 x 594mm landscape orientation) of some family and kid photos and want to get it printed and framed before xmas.

I chose a mix of normal poses and fun shots as I scrounged through my photo archives from the past year or two. I'm sure she'll love it.

Any ideas on how/where to get this printed quickly?

I'm thinking glossy photo paper, rather than canvas - but could be swayed with the right argument.

I'll then need to get it framed. There's local framing places but I'll have to get it printed and then take it in there to get framed. I'm just worried I'm running out of time. :)

My other thought is to upload it to Red Bubble as a private artwork and get them to print and frame it. The only problem is, it'll cost me probably about $200+.

Any other ideas?

PS: I used Picture Collage Maker Pro to put the collage together. Not a bad piece of software for the purpose.

[iceman]

Officeworks do A1 size, but only in 200 gsm satin or gloss. Though they do do canvas, and the prices are very reasonable.

Anyone know what the quality is like?

http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/content/Copying-and-printing#

[iceman]

These guys only do 180 gsm for $38.

http://www.printroom.com.au/large-format-posters-quoted.php

LOL just had a look at their order form, they only allow 1MB file to be uploaded, but specify it must be 300dpi. I'd like to see the quality of that jpeg.

My full-res jpeg at 300dpi is about 40 mb. The full-res TIF is 100mb.

[mental4astro]

Hi Mike,

Harvey Norman computer stores usually have large size printers instore for such printing. Have a try of them.

[kinetic]

Mike,

I've just recently block mounted on 10mm MDF a selection of my best
stuff for an early family Xmas we held last weekend.
I was shortly going to do a DIY explanation thread of how I went with
it to show the pitfalls etc that I learned.
As the weekend is now out of the way and the relatives all have
their gifts I can put it up on here (didn't want to earlier for fear
of them seeing their pressies online :D )

I went the DIY path because I thought the price OW were asking
for A0/A1 was a bit on the steep side...and my prints weren't all
that good to warrant the expense :)

PS: prints done by OW btw. Prints submitted in morning, most were available
that afternoon except one which we picked up from another branch the next
day (they had run out of certain paper apparently).
Colour stuff was awesome, BW stuff was ok.
I would recommend asking for a small sample pic if the picture has
astro stuff. My terrestrial stuff came out pretty much as it looked on
our good LED monitor but the first print run of astro stuff was very dark.
Titles of moon images for example were almost unreadable.
With some adjustment at OW (by them) the 2nd print run was OK, not perfect
but OK.

Can't show you any pics as they aren't on my work puter. As soon as I get
home I'll email them/ write a quick thread to show you how they turned out.



Steve

[[1ponders]]

Geez they are growing up quick Mike. Nice collection.

[Octane]

I could print it for you.

I can do up to 36x24". Which is bigger than A1.

Semi-gloss paper and Epson ink combination that will last over 100 years (guaranteed) when framed behind glass and stored out of direct sunlight.

$140 including shipping.

H

[Atlantis69]

Just sent you a PM regarding print costs.
I can also organise framing which I forgot to mention.

[Satchmo]

Steve - How do you mount the prints on the MDF ?

[kinetic]

Mark, Mike, all,

spurred on by the overwhelming, enthusiastic response from Mike,
here is a quick rundown of what I did.:P
Bump it out into a separate thread Mike if you don't want it here.

Pic 1: the glue on the left worked beautifully, the glue on the right was
terrible. (It left a webbed, raised lumpiness in the spray pattern).
That showed up through the test prints) In hindsight it says that on
the can. The good one was from Lincraft, $15 scobes a can.
Nice, evenly distributed contact spray.

I sprayed the MDF with an even coat of glue can 1. Let it stand until
tack dry and no 'wetness' appearance at all.
I sprayed the back of the print, being very careful not to let overspray
sneak under the print and on to the picture side.
I was very careful also not to use too much on the print, the print
would start to warp and expand with the initial 'wetness' of the spray.
I did, however do 2 passes over all perimeter parts of the print just
to make sure there was no part of the print without glue to avoid lifting.

I let that sit until tack dry also.

Then I laid the print on the MDF starting from one end and working it down
on to the board with fan out motions with one hand until the print was
totally down and in contact.
I used a roller to press the entire print down
to make all glue contact, working the edges especially.

The print was always slightly oversized compared to the board so I could put
pressure on the print with the roller.
Luckily I have a disk sander so I could cut off the excess print and sand the board afterwards.
I painted the edges of the finished job with water based kids black paint,
very watered down. it almost dried straight away after brushing on.

Sash cord and staples added carefully with an industrial staple gun later
being very careful to use staples less than 10mm depth! :)

A few pics, note the edges aren't painted in the pics, the finished product
looks way better with black edges.

A tip to save a bit more on printing costs....as you can see, most were
panoramas and so I cut and pasted two separate panos together to
make one massive combination print.
Terrestrial prints worked beautifully, the astro stuff however was a bit of
a disappointment. My moon prints were very dark, even after requesting a re-try by OW.
Blacks tended to show any dust speck trapped under the
print. Dust was an issue, I blew everything down with the air compressor
before the final stick down. It was quite a stressful time too :)
Now they are all offloaded to the relatives I no longer am worried about
damage to them.:rolleyes:

FWIW, very cheap to make...but I did have spare 10mm MDF on hand
and power tools to enable me to size all backing boards.
PS: the handbag is not mine.

Steve

[Satchmo]

Nice post Steve. What was the GSM of your prints ? I would be worried about bubles with paper like 200 GSM ?

[kinetic]

Mark,

this from OW's site,
Moon stuff was A3...from memory $4-ish a print.
Moon stuff became the test subjects.
Once I was confident it worked I did the big ones.
Other larger panos were gloss A0s and A1s.
The prices were as circled.
If I messed one up I was going to blow $38 tops.
No bubbles.

[Satchmo]

Thats good to know- I am inspired to try some of this stuff myself as have an OW down the road. Looking at other prices on line their print service is pretty cheap.

[Steffen]

Very interesting, I hadn't considered OW before. How did you get around the 1MB file size limit? Do they allow bigger files if you show up with a USB stick?

Cheers
Steffen.

[kinetic]

Steffen,
we took them in on a USB stick.
I didn't know about any file size limit?...is that an online ordering
thing?

From memory the big panos were 30-40Mb in size each.

Steve