Our black and white images (such as the image on the linked article) aren't satellite images at all, they are high resolution elevation models that we've used GIS software to light and create hillshade.

We do have some color images that use satellite imagery and the creation of those images is going to be the subject of my next post. We do things like remove the natural hillshade and apply our own (due to a quirk of human perception where sun coming from below causes terrain to be perceived as inverted) and blending images from different days, etc.

Re: is this really a "map?" That's a comment we get quite a bit, especially in FB comments on our ads. These images are not traditional maps, but a map is a depiction/representation, which these are. Anyway, "map" is certainly shorter than "visual representation of a geographic area" so it's what we go with.

Re: detail. It's all about the size of the area you are printing. Our world map uses 30-meter data, but you'd need to print it on the side of a building to see the limit to the detail. So in our sizes, using 3-5cm data wouldn't improve the maps, you wouldn't be able to see any of that detail. We only make maps if that is true.