What is/are the best (reasonable if any) source(s) to purchase WWII wall maps? I'm assuming reproductions would be the best way to go. Somebody school me. Lol Best way to hang? Share pictures of yours?
Reproductions are certainly cheaper. If you can get them in electronic format there are places that will print them for you. The West Point Atlases are one source of electronic and/or book formatted maps. See: Department of History - Our Atlases or more specifically Department of History - WWII Asian Pacific Theater and Department of History - WWII European Theater or in book format: https://smile.amazon.com/West-Point...encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&ie=UTF8 Here's a google for "poster map world war 2" lots of places to get them including Amazon: poster map world war 2 - Google Search And some of the links: poster map world war 2 - Google Search https://www.amazon.com/Poster-Europe-Africa-Antique-Reprint/dp/B00CPU4O8M https://www.amazon.com/Map-Poster-Battles-campaigns-European/dp/B00GZUKGP8
Print shops usually have digital printers. I have given them jpgs and got prints two feet by four feet back. Quality depends on the equipment. Office Depot is where I usually go.
Searching the forum for maps yielded: http://ww2f.com/search/227361/?q=map&o=relevance In particular this thread had a couple of good pointers: GSGS Map Reproductions Here's the result of a similar search on feldgrau: Feldgrau.net - Search searching for maps of areas of interest will turn up some interesting alternatives as well I suspect. Different phrasings and or spellings of the request may produce some interesting variations. For instance "wall map" vs "poster map" may make a world of difference.
Print quality also depends on the actual file as well. I work at a print shop and its amazing looking at some of the files people send us thinking they will blow up 400%+ and still look good! If you find one, make sure its at least 300DPI if you're going to be printing it.
I scan printed images in at 1200 dpi when I want to expand them. If you don't have that robust scanner the print shops can do it, most of them. I had a small image scanned in at 4800, it's now the decoupaged table-top for a board gamer friend.
The more the DPI the better! 300 DPI is more a base value for prints. Anything less and it just won't look good...but a 4800 DPI image might not print at that depending on the printer!
Somewhere I saw a list of DPI to final image size. Of course original image size plays a part as well. I think 300 DPI was considered adequate if you didn't want to enlarge it (although some early printers only printed at 150 DPI and they were sort of acceptable). 600 DPI is noticeably clearer even if you don't enlarge though.
Yeah, like I said, you want AT LEAST 300DPI for a print. Most people won't notice a difference between 300 and 600 dpi for a photo print. At larger (ie poster) sizes you will, but 300DPI is pretty standard for us to print with...its also a file size issue as well. something at 4000 dpi is going to be a huge file and you'd probably have to have a special printer that could handle a file that is probably well over 1GB to process etc and print.
I tend to think in terms of the dpi a file was created with. Your rule of thumb works really well if you apply it to the file as printed. Which is probably what you intended from the beginning. Some of the modern tech does do a better job of "interpolating" and can make images better for a given dpi than you would have gotten a couple of decades ago.. For a wall map that you are not going to be examining closely 150 dpi might be acceptable. Much lower and you are talking "modern art" not maps.
