While Photojojo continues to scour the world for unique photography gadgets, it’s beginning to add new services to its lineup – all with a whimsical touch, of course. Its latest are engineer prints, which are 3 x 4-foot prints made from industrial printers that are designed for printing architectural and engineering blueprints. That’s 36 x 48 inches, which means you get a poster-sized printout that will cover a good chunk of your wall.
If you have never felt an architectural print in your hand, imagine a very thin and light paper (20-pound paper weight), which is about the same as the standard inkjet/laser paper you’d use at home or office – a bit thicker than newspaper. The quality of these prints, however, is rough, low-res, and only in monochrome, but that look is intentional. The technique is known as halftone, which combines different sized and shaped dots that make up the image when viewed from afar – when your eyes blur the dots together. You can hang it using pins, clips, putty, or any simple method; you could frame it, but framing a 3 x 4-foot print is super costly.
According to Photojojo, the best photos to use are in 3:4 or 4:5 dimensions (either portrait or landscape). This will leave you with the least amount of whitespace around the image. The JPG or PNG file sizes should be less than 25MB, but above 1,000 pixels if you want a good resolution. The ideal photos should have sharp contrast and minimal dark areas; blacks in images will print as gray and look washed out, while contrast helps with making other colors “pop” when printed in halftone.
The prints are printed and rolled in Northern California, and each print will cost you $25. Besides posters, these prints can be used as gift-wrapping, wallpaper murals, giant photo booth prints, street art (with homemade paste), or whatever your brain comes up with.
Pop Photo points out that you can also do this at Staples, which offers engineering prints that are much cheaper (starting at $7). But Photojojo will inspect your prints to make sure they look OK; Pop Photo says the results from Staples are a mixed bag.
(Via Photojojo)
