How to Create Huge, Life-sized Posters With the Rasterbator

Ever wanted to create a poster the size of your wall? I’ve found posters to be an absolute delight — my room is covered with posters of my favorite movies, or unique cartoons, or people that I have a lot of respect for. There are times when I’d really wish for a poster of something I found on the internet though, and at times I’ll print it on one sheet of paper. How about those images that deserve more space on your wall? Can you create one of those with your printer?

The Rasterbator service does precisely that. It takes an image that you select, and enlarges it. It then creates a PDF file that you can print out, and assemble on your wall. It is a web application, although you can download a standalone application that has no size or resolution limits (for those of you with obscenely high-resolution pictures).

You can select an image from your hard drive or from a location online.

Should you choose to upload an image online, you’ll be limited to a 1MB file size.

After you select an image, you’ll have the ability to crop and resize it. In this step, you’ll also be able to adjust your image according to the size of your paper on the right hand side of the screen. If you’re using normal 8.5 x 11 paper, select A4. (A4 should be the default selection, but I want to give you a heads up  just in case it isn’t…)

In this step, you’ll also select how many sheets you want to print this image onto. Depending on the original image size, you may not want to enlarge it so much as to pixelate it like crazy. Similarly, you may not want to waste your $60 of color ink on a rasterbatorized poster.

Once you press Next, you’ll be asked to confirm your creation.

Click Continue if that’s the size you wanted.

You now have some fine-tuning options. You can choose to have a border around each piece of paper in the image — only do this if you intend to have white spaces around each piece of paper, or if you intend to cut off those margins. (I can’t imagine that I would though, sounds like way too much work.)

You can also select maximum dot sizes — if you have large images, you can increase your dot size, and if you have a small image you can decrease your dot size. If you don’t know what to do with this, leave it at the default 10mm.

Lastly, you can choose to print it in black and white, some other monochromatic pattern, or in full out color.

Once you’re done all that jazz, click Rasterbate!

Once the Rasterbation process is complete, you’ll be greeted by a .pdf download. Accept the transfer.

Your final result should look something like this:

Image Source: Distinction blog

If you want to print out a poster for your wall from an image you’ve got on your computer, give Rasterbator a try! Oh, and don’t let the silly name bother you — the program does its job well. Pick only the best images!