How do I make my print size bigger with my printer?

How do you print out a life size picture using a normal printer?

• I'm making a keyblade but it's really detailed and I want to print it out so I don't screw it up. Both for the design and because I can't get the handle size right on my tracing paper. I can't seem to find anything about using a normal printer though to print out the pictures. I have photoshop 7 and I think I resized the image correctly but I don't know how I should print the whole thing out. Are there any free programs that make it so you can print out a life size image with a normal printer?

• Answer:

  1. Take your photo using a digital camera. Use the biggest file size setting that you can with the camera, and make sure the camera is at least an eight-megapixel one. You want to have as much resolution as possible so you can blow your image up to life size without suffering too much image degradation. 2. Plug your camera into your computer with a USB cable and import your photo into Adobe Photoshop. This works best with a fast computer (a.k.a. a computer with a lot of RAM). Otherwise the photo will take ages to load. 3. Select the "Crop" tool from the left-hand sidebar. Click and drag the tool across your image so that the selection just touches the head, feet, and shoulders. Make it as close as possible to the person in your photo. Double click on your selection to confirm the crop. 4. Select "Image" from the top menu of Adobe Photoshop and click on "Image Size" from the resulting popup menu. 5. Click on the "Height" field where the popup says "Document Size." Enter in the height of your person in inches. Enter "300" for the print resolution as well. The ideal print resolution for a color image is 300 dpi (dots per inch), although you may still experience some image deterioration if you needed to blow your image up to life size. 6. Save your file. 7. Print your image using a large format printer. When the print preview screen comes up, make sure that the height of the printout is the same as that of your image. If you do not have access to one, save your file to a USB drive and take it in to a print shop to be printed. 8. Cut the image of your person out from the sheet of paper and put a thin layer of adhesive onto the back of it. 9. Lay the printout on foamboard and rub it to work out any wrinkles. Cut the foamboard around the image until you have a life-size cutout.