Enlarge a photo for a 16×20 easel
How to enlarge a small or blurry phone or Facebook photo for a 16×20 funeral easel print, and what a 300 ppi file can and cannot make sharp.
A 16×20 is the usual portrait on an easel beside the casket. Phone pictures and photos saved from Facebook are often the only file a family can find on short notice, and they are often small, soft, or compressed. This page is about what that enlargement can honestly be.
Start with the largest file you have
A screenshot of a Facebook post is smaller than the photo that was uploaded there. Download the original from the phone or ask the person who posted it for the file, then upload that. JPG, PNG, and WEBP all work. A scan of a flat print is better than a photo of a print taken at an angle, because glare and a curve show up at easel size.
If the best face is one person in a group, crop to that person before you upload. The restoration keeps the photograph you give it.
What the 16×20 file is
A portrait includes a 16×20 print file at 300 pixels per inch. That file is 4,800 × 6,000 pixels, including bleed, and the 24×36 is 7,276 × 10,876 at the same 300 pixels per inch. Both are JPG and PDF, with crop marks. The download page also states the real detail in the photograph you started with. A 16×20 is often about 150–200 pixels per inch of real detail. From a few feet away, which is how an easel is seen, that can look clear. Up close, a smaller print looks sharper.
The enlargement for print is prepared after you pay. The preview you judge first is the restored photograph, watermarked, beside the original. Pay only if that face looks like them. A blurry or heavily compressed photo can stay soft. The file is still built at the shop’s size. It is not a claim that every phone picture becomes a sharp 300 ppi poster.
When the photo is too small
If the photograph is very small, the site says so before you continue: the face may be redrawn rather than restored. Use a larger, clearer photo if you have one. Prefer the frame where the face is already large. The sizes, including 11×14 and the frames past 16×20, are listed in Funeral easel photo sizes. The print-ready files are on the funeral poster page.
Take the PDF to a shop that trims to crop marks, or the JPG if they asked for an image. Which of those sizes that shop can finish today is on the shop’s own page. Where to print a funeral photo today is the note for that call.
The 16×20 file this page describes is on the funeral poster page.
Preview first, pay only if you like it