Posters of Brazil Page
Of all the requests I receive certainly the most common is if I can provide wall poster pictures of Brazil and/or tourist materials, usually for classroom use. Free, of course! There was a time, long long ago, when the Brazilian Embassy in Washington DC, and many Consulates would provide scenic photos and posters upon request. No more! Acabou, jamais! Also Varig Airlines was also at one time a good source for posters and travel / tourist related items. Varig is basically bankrupt and hasn't given out posters for years, as far as I know. So what to do?
There is an easy way to obtain posters. Go to Google and type "posters and photos of Brazil" and you will get about 200,000 hits for of sites willing to sell you a very scenic panorana of Rio de Janeiro or Brazil for about $12 with Shipping and Handling (S/H). Of course, about 25% if the hits will be for the movie Brazil, not the country Brasil.
And there is Ebay. I have purchased a few on the auction site and I highly recommend it. The selection is not really that great, but it is usually less expensive and faster. The image on the right is probably the most common, and can be bought for about $10 if you are careful. Watch out for the S/H charges because there are vendors that will sell the poster cheap and then stick it to you on the S/H.
Free Posters, kind of
Why buy posters if you can make them yourself. I have found a way to get nice posters for a very good price -- not exactly free, but very inexpensive. All that is needed is:
- a color printer, with white office-sized paper
- a good, high resolution photograph (on computer media),
- some basic materials (sissors, double sided tape and a roll of xxxx)
- and a software graphics program that can enlarge pictures to be printed on regular 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.
The image on the left shows some of the posters we have made doing it this way. No, they are not perfect - the joints where the sheets that make up the poster are taped together show if you look closely, but it beats paying $20 bucks or more each or waiting a week to get the package. All in all, I think making a poster is much better than buying one from a commercial establishment or Internet company. Oh yes, pictures of the family, kids and grandkids are also good subjects for posters. If you buy the program (see below) the additional cost to make a large 2 x 3 foot picture of the dog is minimal.
Details....
1. Any color printer will do. Most people have ink-jets which will work fine. A color laser printer is better, because it is faster and provides a more uniform image.
2. Good images of any subject you may want made into a poster may be find on the Internet. Yahoo or Google image search will provide thousands of images, even with the 'large' option. A bigger original photo (higher resolution) means a better quality image on the blown-up poster. I recomment at least 1000 pixels on any side, otherwise the picture will look granny. Below are a few pictures I have used for posters.
3. You will need some kind of large paper to serve as a backing on which to glue or tape the panels that will form the poster. I recommend a mix of single sided and double sided tape, trimming off the white margen on bottom and right side of the photo page for best results.
4. Now the key ingredient: a software program that will take a picture, amplify it (i,e do a blow-up) and print it out in pages / panels that can be joined together to form the poster. I recommend a product called Wall Photo Maker, available at many download sites online (cnet, hotfiles, etc...) or directly from the maker at www.oreware.com. It costs about $20, but the nice part is there is a seven day free trial period so you can use it (including printing!) to see if you like it. It's a great product! One last tip: when printing, set the paper layout to 'horizontal' and then set the poster width parameter to about 21.2 inches (?). This will let give you a poster that is exactly 2 sheets wide (considering regular 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper). So with either 6 or 8 sheets (2 across, 3 or 4 high) you can make a nice mid-sized poster.
Some photos I have used for Posters...
Here are some of the pictures I have used to make wall posters. Click on the icon for the full image. If you want to save the picture to disk click on the right mouse button and choose the "Save as..." option. This will save a copy of the picture to disk. Pronto! Also checkout the icon for "Scenic Backgrounds" at the bottom of this page for more pictures that may be of interest.
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Related information on backgrounds and pictures
Scenic Backgrounds. This page is may be of interest also. The backgrounds can also be used for posters. This page was written to explain how to insert images as backgrounds for flyers or Powerpoint presentations on Brazil. It also has more pictures that can be used for posters (at 1100 x 850 resolution). The pictures have large blank areas to include text or have been "lightened" so that text can be overlayered. Note: there seem to be too many of Rio, as compared to the rest of Brazil.
All Topics Here!
Return to the Main Subject Index by clicking on the "Topics and Updates" icon on the left.
And there is Ebay. I have purchased a few on the auction site and I highly recommend it. The selection is not really that great, but it is usually less expensive and faster. The image on the right is probably the most common, and can be bought for about $10 if you are careful. Watch out for the S/H charges because there are vendors that will sell the poster cheap and then stick it to you on the S/H.
The image on the left shows some of the posters we have made doing it this way. No, they are not perfect - the joints where the sheets that make up the poster are taped together show if you look closely, but it beats paying $20 bucks or more each or waiting a week to get the package. All in all, I think making a poster is much better than buying one from a commercial establishment or Internet company. Oh yes, pictures of the family, kids and grandkids are also good subjects for posters. If you buy the program (see below) the additional cost to make a large 2 x 3 foot picture of the dog is minimal.
bgp_01
bgp_02
bgp_03
bgp_04
bgp_05
bgp_06
bgp_07
bgp_08
bgp_09
bgp_10