In Think Galactically, Print Locally we told you about a Do It Yourself wall mural that you could assemble from an ultra high-resolution NASA image.

Most ordinary public domain or Creative Commons photographs don't admit to this kind of large-format printing treatment. This is not because the images aren't available for re-use, but simply because they aren't available at these sorts of resolutions. When was the last time you saw a Flickr image sized at 29566 X 14321, for instance?

Not every kind of photograph requires very high resolutions, and not every kind of photograph is appropriate for release under Creative Commons at large formats. Producing large-format museum quality prints of their work is one of the ways that photographers who highlight sustainability issues, like Ed Burtynsky and Chris Jordan are able to make a living and underwrite the costs of producing such technically demanding work. In both cases, many of their photographs appear in screen resolution on their websites. This model of making it easy for anyone to view low-resolution work, while monetizing ultra-high-resolution work, is an important one, especially for artists where wide familiarity with their images is key to their social value.

A similar model, useful for professional artists, and for museums and galleries, makes it possible for anyone to zoom in on a very high-resolution image using an ajax applet called iipimage. See, for instance, this astonishingly detailed image (222 megapixels) of Maccu Piccu, taken by photographer Andre Gunther. This allows artists like Gunther to be able to share the extraordinary detail in their work, while still being able to monetize their prints, and not have to incur excessive bandwidth charges. Making a watermarked photo available as wallpaper, in this case, at screen resolution, is one of the possible compromises for those who wish to view a larger image.

As it becomes less expensive to produce such images, people will be drawn to produce even higher resolution images. Scott Howard, for instance, has been producing Gigapixel images. For comparison, here is Howard's 1.5 gigapixel image of Maccu Piccu.

Outside photo: Kevin Rosseel