If you want to jazz up a drab wall in your living room, bedroom or dorm, a large wall poster provides a creative way to do it. And if you want to do something really impressive, you can create your own poster based on a favorite photo. With the help of Photoshop, the process is really quite simple.
Instructions
1. Decide on the width and height of the poster you want. To make this determination, consider the size of the room and its furnishings. You will want the poster to be no larger than the largest piece of furniture in the room, especially if the room is small.
2. Load the image you want to use into your computer from your digital camera. If you only have a print copy, scan it in using the highest quality settings in your scanner software.
3. Open Photoshop, select "File" and click "Open." Browse to find the file you want and open it. Go to "Image" and click "Image Size." In the dialogue box, change "Interpolation" mode to "Bicubic Smoother." Then change the height and width sizes so that both at least equal the dimensions you chose for the final size of the poster. Click "OK."
4. Select the "Rectangular Marquee" tool. In the "Options" at the top, type in the width and height of the poster you want. Now draw that selection on the screen where you want it. Unless the proportions of your original image and the new one just happen to match, you'll probably have to do some cropping. Go to "Image" and click "Crop."
5. Save your image as a high-resolution JPEG, burn it to a CD and take it to a local printer like Staples or Kinkos (FedEx Office) that does large-scale printing. Staples and Kinkos can print posters up to 24 by 36 inches. If you want a larger poster (up to 40 by 60 inches) you can try sending your image to an online service like Large Format Posters.com.
