Rating: 5 

Version tested: 1.21

Description: The Rasterbator is a freeware program that can process any picture file to create huge “rasterized” printable posters of the image, up to 20 meters in size.

If you ever wanted to create a big poster out of an image file then ‘The Rasterbator’ is for you. This program allows you to define a poster size of your choice, segments the would-be poster into printer-page size chunks, and then enlarges your image, spreading it across the multiple sheets of paper. You can then print it and put the hard copy back together to create the actual poster (see examples below). The maximum supported poster size is 20m tall or wide.

Note that Rasterbator does not at any point convert the image to vector. Rather, your picture will be enlarged by filling up rasterized pixels; which is to say that it is blown-up much as it would be in an image manipulation program such as Photoshop.

Having said this, Rasterbator offers some really nifty features as follows:

• Depending on your printer, Rasterbator allows you to define the size of the printed page you would like to use (A4 or ‘Letter’ or any custom paper size you would care to define).
• You can define whehter your desired poster is landscape or portrait; Rasterbator will then chop up the image across multiple pages and produce a printable PDF output file.
• The program allows you to create colored or monochrome images; additionally, you can use it to ‘recolor’ your image by defining your desired output color.
• You can also set the pixel size that you want it to use (the smaller the pixel size, the more detailed the image will be). Bigger pixels mean that you would need to step back from the poster in order to see a discernable image, which is what you would use for large sizes.
• Rasterbator can create an outline around your image; which would be very useful if you want to make a cutout.
• You can either use The Rasterbator as a web service or a downloadable standalone program (with no installation needed).

This program has a wizard interface and is very easy to use. Definitely one of the coolest and most interesting freeware programs around (not to mention most interestingly named!).

Go to the Rasterbator home page. Rasterbator online gallery.