[NA] Printing wall poster?

CJones

CJones

Final Approach
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My 10 y/o son has built a few different space-related LEGO kits lately (including a Curiosity Mars Rover) and wants to display them in his room. I was thinking of printing a wall poster (this one) as a backdrop to a shelf I'll build to put them on.

Any suggestions for a reliable source for printing large sized (~4' wide maybe?) posters for something like this? I see that Walgreens, OfficeDepot, etc. all do this online, but curious about their quality.
 
CJones said:
My 10 y/o son has built a few different space-related LEGO kits lately (including a Curiosity Mars Rover) and wants to display them in his room. I was thinking of printing a wall poster (this one) as a backdrop to a shelf I'll build to put them on.

Any suggestions for a reliable source for printing large sized (~4' wide maybe?) posters for something like this? I see that Walgreens, OfficeDepot, etc. all do this online, but curious about their quality.
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I've gone the Office Depot route, and have been pretty satisfied with the results. The cost wasn't major (~$15?) so you could give one a shot and assess it.

They do have "photo quality" paper available for these large-format printers, though I don't know if the Office Depot-type locations have it available (and, of course, it'll cost more). Had it where I worked. I downloaded a bunch of historical NASA photos, printed them out on the good paper, and replaced the pictures in a set of framed "company standard" PR pictures. Turned out pretty good.

One thing to keep in mind is that the images may fade a bit over time. But they are cheap enough to have re-printed, and you can even use that as an excuse to periodically put in another image.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Maybe you contact your local buddy in the A/E field who has a D size printer that hasn't been used in the last decade. I know ours hasn't.
 
wanttaja said:
I've gone the Office Depot route, and have been pretty satisfied with the results. The cost wasn't major (~$15?) so you could give one a shot and assess it.

They do have "photo quality" paper available for these large-format printers, though I don't know if the Office Depot-type locations have it available (and, of course, it'll cost more). Had it where I worked. I downloaded a bunch of historical NASA photos, printed them out on the good paper, and replaced the pictures in a set of framed "company standard" PR pictures. Turned out pretty good.

One thing to keep in mind is that the images may fade a bit over time. But they are cheap enough to have re-printed, and you can even use that as an excuse to periodically put in another image.

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

Good to know. I've used them for CAD type stuff and flowcharts, etc., but haven't used them for photo quality stuff. I'll give them a shot. Thanks!
 
If you want to go higher end, Nations Photo Lab is where I go for really high quality prints for a reasonable price. Your 10yr probably won't care, but if it is for you to also enjoy an amazing print . . .
 
I've thought about buying a large format printer and just printing stuff for people. You can buy a good quality used printer ridiculously cheaply, and the supplies aren't that expensive. Plus I just really love doing that kind of stuff.

One of the first things I got to do when I took a network engineering gig at a large online brokerage back in '99 was to buy a great big HP DesignJet. I caught a lot comments from people about how that was just a waste of money (which flowed like water at the time), but once we had a 36" printer... seemed like everyone suddenly had a need for it. Nothing like a big ol' roll of vellum to class up the place.
 
DaleB said:
I've thought about buying a large format printer and just printing stuff for people. You can buy a good quality used printer ridiculously cheaply, and the supplies aren't that expensive. Plus I just really love doing that kind of stuff.

One of the first things I got to do when I took a network engineering gig at a large online brokerage back in '99 was to buy a great big HP DesignJet. I caught a lot comments from people about how that was just a waste of money (which flowed like water at the time), but once we had a 36" printer... seemed like everyone suddenly had a need for it. Nothing like a big ol' roll of vellum to class up the place.
Click to expand...
I'm not even sure that there is current driver support for great big HP DesignJets anymore. Maybe just for sh**s and giggles I'll turn it on the next time I'm in the office and see if it still works.
 
We've used snapfish for stuff like that with great results.

www.pilotsofamerica.com

Making a full-size poster of my instrument panel for wall art

I'd like to make a full-size poster of my instrument panel to hang in my office and maybe give a duplicate to my student pilot son for his dorm wall. Current plan is take photo on ground from back seat, crop out extraneous views, then take to Fedex Kinkos or similar for printing. My...
www.pilotsofamerica.com www.pilotsofamerica.com
 
Hmm, it appears you can still order plotter paper.

I loved the smell of mylar in the morning. It was the smell of... finality.
 
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