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Margins, marks and costOptional

Most home printers need at least 5 mm. Labels and the map need 8 mm or more.

Finished size
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Sheets
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Sharpness
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Ink
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Add a picture to start. Nothing is uploaded.

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Rasterbator poster — halftone dot wall art from any photo

Redraw any photo as a grid of dots, sized by how dark each part is — the look the Rasterbator made famous — and print it across as many sheets as your wall can take. Dots print as crisp vector circles, so even a small photo makes a big poster.

Nothing uploadedVector dotsWorks from small photosNumbered sheets

The short answer

To make a rasterbated poster, add a photo, switch the style to dots, choose a dot size (8–15 mm suits most walls) and black or colour dots, then set how many sheets across. Download the PDF, print at 100%, and join the sheets by their labels. From across a room, the dots merge back into the photo.

Making it

Four steps to the PDF

  1. Step 1: Pick a photo with contrast

    Faces, silhouettes and bold shapes work best. Busy, evenly lit scenes turn into an even field of grey dots.

  2. Step 2: Set the dots

    Bigger dots read as graphic art up close; smaller dots look like the photo from nearer. Black dots print cheapest and look the most striking.

  3. Step 3: Choose the size

    Dots are drawn as vector circles, so resolution barely matters here — a photo 1000 pixels wide has more detail than any dot poster can show.

  4. Step 4: Print, cut and join

    Print at 100%. Trim the left and top edge of each sheet along the marks and lay it over its neighbour. Dots crossing a join line up exactly.

Putting it up

How to assemble a tiled poster

Every sheet carries its label, which edges to cut, and a small map of the whole poster with its own place filled in. The PDF's first page shows the full layout.

  1. Step 1: Print at 100%

    In the print dialog choose Actual size or 100%, never Fit to page, and the same paper you chose here. Print one sheet first and measure it.

  2. Step 2: Lay the sheets out

    Rows are letters from the top, columns are numbers from the left: A1 is top-left. Each sheet names its place and shows it on a small map.

  3. Step 3: Trim the marked edges

    Cut along the crop marks on the left and top edge of every sheet, except the first column's left and the first row's top.

  4. Step 4: Join and hang

    Lay each cut edge over its neighbour's overlap strip, where the picture matches, and glue or tape from behind. Trim the outer margins last.

Size guide

Sheets across, and how big that is

For a typical 2:3 portrait photo, printed on portrait sheets with 10 mm margins and a 10 mm overlap. Worked out by the same code that makes the PDF.

A4 sheets
Across × downSheetsFinished size
2 × 3637 × 56 cm15 × 22 in
3 × 41255 × 83 cm22 × 32 in
4 × 52073 × 110 cm29 × 43 in
5 × 63091 × 137 cm36 × 54 in
6 × 742109 × 164 cm43 × 64 in
8 × 972145 × 218 cm57 × 86 in
US Letter sheets
Across × downSheetsFinished size
2 × 3638 × 57 cm15 × 23 in
3 × 41257 × 85 cm22 × 34 in
4 × 52075 × 113 cm30 × 45 in
5 × 63094 × 141 cm37 × 55 in
6 × 742113 × 169 cm44 × 66 in
8 × 972150 × 225 cm59 × 88 in

Each extra sheet across adds 18 cm on A4 and 19 cm on Letter — the sheet, less its two margins and the overlap. When the last row would hold only a sliver of picture, the tool offers a slightly smaller size that saves the whole row.

How big can it go?

Picture size against poster size

The halftone style needs only one pixel per dot, so resolution rarely limits it. For the photo style, this is the rule:

Largest poster width by picture width
PictureSharp up close (100 ppi)Fine from 2 m (50 ppi)
Chat app photo (WhatsApp, Messenger)1,600 px wide41 cm (16 in)81 cm (32 in)
Laptop screenshot1,920 px wide49 cm (19 in)98 cm (38 in)
12 MP phone photo4,000 px wide102 cm (40 in)203 cm (80 in)
24 MP camera photo6,000 px wide152 cm (60 in)305 cm (120 in)

Why not 300? That is the figure for a photo held in the hand. Nobody reads a poster from 30 cm, and at a metre the eye cannot separate much past 100 pixels per inch.

Ideas

What people make with it

  • A portrait from across the room

    Crop close on a face with strong light from one side. From three metres it's the photo; up close, it's pattern.

  • One colour on coloured paper

    Choose a custom dot colour and print on pastel paper for a screen-printed look for the cost of one ink.

  • Band and film posters

    Album covers and film stills with a dark background turn into bold dot art that suits a big wall.

  • One cartridge

    Black dots need only black ink, usually the cheapest cartridge. The ink estimate shows how much before you print a single sheet.

Your picture never leaves your device

The picture is opened, cut into sheets and written into the PDF by your own browser. There is no upload, because there is no server for it to go to — load the page, turn off Wi-Fi, and the poster still gets made. The wall photo for the preview is handled the same way.

  • No upload, no account, no email
  • No watermark on your poster
  • No ads or logos printed in the PDF
  • No ads over the preview
  • Settings remembered on this device only
FAQ

Questions people ask

Anything we've missed?

Tell us

What is a rasterbated poster?

An image rebuilt from a regular grid of dots, each one larger where the image is dark and smaller where it is light — the halftone effect newspapers use, blown up to wall size. The name comes from The Rasterbator, a program from the mid-2000s that made the style popular. This tool is not affiliated with it.

What dot size should I choose?

Choose from where the poster will be seen. For a poster viewed from two to three metres, 8 to 15 mm dots work well. Smaller dots keep more detail but need more sheets to show it; larger dots are more graphic. The preview updates as you change it.

Does my photo need to be high resolution?

No. Each dot only needs one pixel of the photo, so a picture 300 pixels wide is already enough for a poster 300 dots across — three metres at 10 mm dots. The dots themselves are vector shapes and print sharp at any size.

Black dots or colour dots?

Black dots are the classic look, the most striking, and need only black ink. Colour dots take each area's own colour, which suits bright pictures. A custom colour prints the whole poster in one ink.

What printer settings should I use for a poster?

Print at 100% or "Actual size" — never "Fit to page" or "Shrink to fit", which scale every sheet slightly and stop the joins lining up. Choose the same paper size you picked here, and turn off borderless printing. On a Mac this is under Scale in the print dialog; in Windows and in Chrome it is under More settings.

How do I put the sheets together?

Lay them out by label: rows are letters from the top, columns numbers from the left. On each sheet, cut along the crop marks on the edges its label names — the left and top, except on the first column and row. Lay each cut edge over its neighbour's overlap strip, where the picture matches, and glue or tape from behind. Trim the outer margins last. The first page of the PDF shows the whole layout.

Is my picture uploaded?

No. The picture is read, cut into sheets and written into the PDF by your own browser. There is no server it could be sent to — you can load the page, switch off Wi-Fi and it still works.

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