need big pix Stalin pls

May 18, 2007 12:52 PM

Does anyone know where I can find a rather big photo of Josef Stalin online? I'm making an iron-on transfer that will go on a babie's onesie, so it needs to print out at least 4 inches (10cm) wide at 300 dpi. Google image search ain't cuttin' it, but it must be out there.
posted by Mayor Curley to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (14 answers total)

I found this one through GIS, large size. Not big enough?
posted by the dief at 12:59 PM on May 18, 2007

Response by poster: I found this one through GIS, large size. Not big enough?

That's the one I'm going with if I don't find anything better. You can only get about 3 inches out of it at 300 (I'll fudge but only if I have to) and it has some weird tartan-pattern artifacting in it.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:03 PM on May 18, 2007

Perhaps enlarging it won't matter if you convert to grey scale, posterize down to two colors, and set a threshold that looks best, a la the iconic Che logo. Like this: http://www.chegevaar.be/afbeeldingen/Chegevaar-logo.gif

It'll transfer cleaner, too
posted by sourwookie at 1:07 PM on May 18, 2007

There is one on Getty Images that is 4537 x 3545. You would have to sign up with them and pay for it, though.
posted by Lazlo Hollyfeld at 1:21 PM on May 18, 2007

What about looking on Flickr's Stalin tags? There are some good ones. Especially this one, although you may need a login to view it.
posted by redarmycomrade at 1:34 PM on May 18, 2007

Best answer: Some of these pictures at Wikimedia Commons may also serve you well.
posted by redarmycomrade at 1:39 PM on May 18, 2007

Stock Exchange has a large scan of a Soviet looking portrait stamp. You'll need a free account to get the full resolution.
posted by Richard Daly at 1:44 PM on May 18, 2007

There's this one, this, and then this, Presumably you want an easily recognizable picture, so this one and this one of a young Stalin wouldn't work for that.
posted by dilettante at 1:50 PM on May 18, 2007

OK, I'll bite - what's the caption going to be?
posted by jbickers at 2:02 PM on May 18, 2007

Response by poster: I'm making a bunch (I bought a pack of six). It's for the "men's shower" (read: "beer drinking") of a buddy while the women are at a real shower. So far I've got the Sami flag, some garish photoshop collage of Kemal Ataturk and Chaka Khan. No captions!
posted by Mayor Curley at 2:16 PM on May 18, 2007

Best answer: Just take the best image you find into Illustrator and apply Live Trace -- you'll end up with a vector file that can be resized however you want it.
posted by deern the headlice at 2:32 PM on May 18, 2007

Young Stalin was kind of a dreamboat.

Martin Amis used this jaunty photo for the cover of Koba the Dread.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:01 PM on May 18, 2007

Response by poster: Just take the best image you find into Illustrator and apply Live Trace -- you'll end up with a vector file that can be resized however you want it.

Holy shit! That's come a long way from autotrace in the old versions, huh? I had very low expectations, but Live Trace is pretty awesome.
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:03 PM on May 18, 2007

Livetrace works really well, at least in my experience, if you really crush the image levels in Photoshop first. Then twiddle the setting in Illustrator and you're good to go.
posted by Haruspex at 4:30 AM on May 19, 2007