Biggest print size...

[bfphoto]

Colby gave you some good advice. You are a student so you may not be able to afford the expensive software. I would not even begin to think about printing my own large prints, that's why I go to a pro lab for the big stuff. You are here in Houston, so you may want to check out Pounds Labs. They do a good job on upsizing prints.

[CobyPhoto]

Bill,

I second the use of Pounds Labs. I do alot of specialty items and metallic prints through them. Before I started using large format printers, in the studio, I used Pounds Exclusively.

CJ

[jairoscz]

awesome, I was also thinking about Houston Photo Imaging, you guys have any input on them?

[bfphoto]

Never heard of them.

[PictureCow]

Originally Posted by jairoscz

awesome, I was also thinking about Houston Photo Imaging, you guys have any input on them?

Years ago I use to work for their sister company API (austin photo imaging) I did my training at the Gulfton store. HPI rocks. They have a Lamda and a Lightjet both industry standards when it comes to large printing... Both amazing machines.

As for RIPS... you really don't "have" to have a RIP unless you do graphically intensive files with text in other programs such as indesign, quark etc. Especially if you're printing at home... and not making huge prints. RIPs are basically just rasterizing text, vector and pixel data into one file... a photo is already a raster image. Incidentally we use Cheetah RIPs at HPI and at API. Some blazing fast RIPs.

[thelegend1472]

i'm not sure if this means anything now...but i print 20x30's with my d70 all the time and they look amazing even up close. i shoot raw..convert to tiff and then convert it to a jpeg to send to my print company. i have 2 on the wall that at that size look better than the images on my comp. just my .02