Today we received our first test prints of the kid’s work printed at a very large print size from my favorite on line print lab and framing service, Mpix.com. I’ve used them for plenty of printing in the past, but this is the first time I’ve used their framing services. And let me just say that the results are phenomenal!!! Why do I use such a strong adjective? Let me take you back to Peru and my childhood.
When we were still in Arequipa and the kids were still shooting pictures with the donated digital point and shoot cameras, there were no issues with how great the quality of the photo held up at a print size of 4×6″. Even an iPhone’s camera can do 4×6’s, but the megapixel size on the donated cameras is no larger than 3 or 4 mega pixels, and we had never tested them at large sizes. So as soon as we started thinking of putting a gallery of the kid’s work together, my thoughts immediately went to “How will the quality hold up at 16×20?” or larger when we really push the limits of these cameras. When framing for a gallery, bigger is always better if you want to grab someone’s attention (I also love really small prints in large mattes, so bigger is not always better, but for the kids’ work it is). Typically, a camera with about 3 mega pixels won’t produce a good looking 16×20″ print. But through the process and wonders of pixel interpolation built into Adobe Lightroom, it doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as I originally thought.
So when the giant Fedex box arrived, I couldn’t hold back my excitement. I just couldn’t wait to see the results of how Luis’ print came out (click here to see the original post on this photograph by Luis). How would it look behind glass? Does it look pixelated? Is it a decent looking matte? Does the “true black and white” feature really live up to its name, or is there a purple tint? How does the frame look? and so on. To sum it up, I haven’t been this excited since I was a little kid at Christmas, and my brother and I were surprised with the highly coveted boy’s toy of the year: A stuffed wrestling doll called a “Wrestling Buddy.” I got the Ultimate Warrior, and my brother got Hulk Hogan. But now that I’m all grown up, my excitement comes from other things like Luis’ photograph. When I stare at it, I’m just blown away at its awesomeness, and I continue to grow more excited each day as we accomplish one more thing and get closer to our first solo show this September in Harrisburg PA.
Finding out these results were huge in my book. And now we can focus on raising support for having the images printed and framed. Whew… now that we have those nerves put to rest, I really want to push the limits of these little cameras and see how a photo printed even larger will hold up… 
