Buying Panoramic Pictures

I have an associate who prints my photos for sale. Or rather, I used to, I generally don't do it any more and this page is mostly legacy information.

They are priced by the square foot, you can have them (almost) any size you want. The first 10 square feet come at $11 per ft², and additional ft² are $7 each. There's a minimum order of $30. Commercial licences for the photos (except Burngin Man) are also available -- contact us.

Photos are printed on an HP Designnjet with 85-year-life high-gamut dye-based inks on mostly Kodak and HP professional papers.

Note that prints sold within the US require a minor special arrangement.

These panoramas look vastly better printed at full resolution than what you see on the web. For any picture, be sure to try the "slice at full resolution" link to get an idea of what you will see in your printed copy. (See note)

Panoramas can be printed in just about any size, up to about 40 feet long, though most will be of limited close-up sharpness at that size.

Every panorama has a fixed ratio of width to height, so if you change the height you change the width. For the extra detailed long panoramas, this means if you want them to be not very long (such as 6') they may be only 6" high. It is not recommended you go below 6" high in most cases.

If you really need to change the aspect ratio, we can crop the image, presumably on the left or the right. Tell us what portion of the image you want to cut away to fit your needs. Probably best to take a few inches more than you need and then hand cut yourself to get the exact crop you want. A $10 fee will be added for custom crops.

When a picture is printed it will be at a given PPI/DPI. (Pixels Per Inch is the right term -- most people mean it when they say DPI.) Pictures at 200PPI and higher will look very sharp even up close. Pictures at 150PPI will look quite sharp, even from just a few inches away. Pictures under 100PPI will appear unsharp very close but will still look excellent when viewed from a typical viewing distance.

Printing a picture so small as to make it more than 300 PPI is wasting resolution. The printer and your eye are not good enough to make the most of this resolution, though of course it doesn't hurt.

We almost always print on satin paper, as glossy has too many reflections, though it is more contrasty. We will normally print your image ourselves. (See note about outside printer.)

• If your print is less than 15.6" high, it will be printed on a 16" tall roll.
• If your print is 15.6" to 23.6" high, it will be printed on a 24" tall roll. (An 18" roll may also be available but is not kept in stock.)
• If your print is under 12.6" high, it may be printed on a 13" or 8" tall roll, but We do not always keep these in stock.
• If your print is under 72" wide, or more than 24" high, we can go to the outside printer.

Your print will come with margins (you get the full roll, we don't do the cutting.) For special case orders we can order (with extra charge and delay) rolls which are 8", 10", 13", 17" or 18" high. You are not charged for the extra paper in the margins. Perversely, some of these narrower rolls cost more per linear foot than the stock 16 and 24 inch rolls we use.

Normally we center the image in the roll, but on your request we will move it so there is just a 1/4" margin at the bottom to make it easier for you to trim.

Shipping is typically $7 in the USA and Canada for small to medium prints. Large prints not to the USA west coast are $11.

Ordering a night/dark shot? Please click here to read an important note.

Framing

It can be difficult and expensive to frame large panoramas. It is difficult to get matte boards for panoramas wider than 56" or so, indeed at many shops, the widest boards are 40". Larger panoramas must be mounted unmatted, or with two half-mattes that are joined.

Frames in general are normally not much longer than 96" though wood mouldings for custom work can be found up to 16' long.

A good and inexpensive framing can be done by placing a picture between two sheets of plexiglass which are bound with clips or plexi-bolts. Again these are limited to 96" in most cases.

Many of the photos, however, with a white margin around the edges, look quite good on walls if carefully mounted with artist's tape plain on a wall. Or to give some depth, mounted on wood with no frame. However, wood boards longer than 96" are hard to find. You can join two boards but will want to tape at the joint for a smooth join before using roll-on glue to mount to the boards. Laminated pressboard is a good choice to mount to.

Photos can also look good mounted around staircases with landings, or along the wainscotting of walls with such features.

Make it Big

There is a lot of resolution in most of the photos, especially those from 2007 on. We have set prices to encourage you to make it big, going 23.5" high or 15.5" high. These are quite dramatic, though I understand how the length can be an issue.

Outside the USA.

I often send the prints outside the USA. First class mail only costs a little more than U.S. mail but if using this, please fill out the customs form 2976-A using the web generator and E-mail us the PDF it gives you. Use the guide to filling out the form for info. If you ask for Priority Mail or Express Mail and use Paypal, it fills out the form for me.

Here are shipping prices

If you are overseas and in a real hurry, you may be able to find a printing house near your own location which allows me to upload the files to them for printing and local pickup by you. I'll work out a price to you based on the printing cost their and a margin for me. This will save you the cost and time of the double shipping, though the local print house will probably be more expensive. Their quality is for you to evaluate. For smaller prints, photo printing services may also be suitable. Call the company and ask if they can print photo quality inkjet, lightjet or similar at the size you need from an uploaded file, and how much they charge.

Cost to you will be about US$80 per square meter, plus whatever the printing house charges (vs. the $120 per square meter we charge for printing it for you.) After 1 m², each additional m² is just $50 for remote print.

Typically we don't provide the full-res files to random folks, sorry.

Calculating your size and price

Use the calculator above in the units you want.

On the full-resolution slices and zoom view

Starting in 2009, the photos got so large that we began using panorama software that easily allows us to render the panoramas far smaller than their full size, but still much bigger than needed for the web. However, I have programmed the web page generator to list the full possible size at which the panorama can be rendered. In these cases the "full rez slice" and zoom view will be at the smaller size, often half the linear resolution (1/4 the pixels) of the full size. If you order a print, the panorama will be rendered at full size (up to 400ppi.) So when examining a full rez slice, compare its height to the dimensions displayed.

Send E-mail to btm@templetons.com to arrange purchase of a photo. You can also contact us for other commercial uses (billboards, magazines, web sites.) You may use the web resolution images (small link with kilobytes under each picture) for multi-monitor screen wallpaper free of charge.

Tell us:

• Which photo you want: (File name or URL is best.)
• What size you want it. Use the calculator above. If you are not going to crop the ends off the image, the width and height must be in the same ratio as the photo on the web site. Ie. if a photo is suggseted as 6' by 1', you can make it 12' by 2', but you can't make it 6' by 1' without chopping off the ends.
• Margins: If under 72" long with exact trim or 1/4" exact margin you can ask us to use the commercial printing house for $3/ft² extra. If we are printing you can specify centered or top or bottom justified with 1/4" margin on the roll.
• Any other details needed to mail the photo. I will give you the paypal address and when you pay it will send us your street address, let us know if you want it sent elsewhere.

You may NOT inline images from our web server without permission. If you do so and I notice the bandwidth, you may suddenly find the image replaced one day with something ruder. If you want to use an image on your web site, or licence one for commercial use, contact us.

Order well in advance of Christmas for gifts.