Resizing photos for print

confucious · Oct 27, 2007

Hey all - just a quick question on sizing of my photos for different print sizes.

I use a Canon XTI which has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (if i am right...). My problem with this is that to get a print that is 5 x 7, 6 x 8, 8 x 10, I end up losing parts of the photo. I know this is necessary and unavoidable but I would like to be the one to controls exactly what I lose on bottom, top, right and left. Most of my photos are "balanced" and I want to maintain that. Is there anyway in Adobe Photoshop, or any other software, that I can do this myself?? Is there some program that you can choose specifically 5 x 7 with "Y" photo, move it around until desired and then save, burn to disc, bring and print??

Thanks tons for any help!!

Urban Grimshaw · Oct 27, 2007

Adobe Photoshop

Images > Image Size > Document size

You can use different measurements, pixels, centimetres, inches, etc. Choose inches and bob's your uncle.

Make sure the Constrain Proportions box is ticked. This will make sure your image doesn't get skewed. It's likely to turn out to be the right proportions, but if not you'll have to crop.

You can also increase the canvas size if you want extra white space round the edges.

Of course, there's probably a million and one simpler programs to use but that's what I'm used to.

Urban Grimshaw · Oct 27, 2007

Actually I think I may have completely misunderstood your question there. Sounds like you want to in some way change the actual dimensions of the image?

you can skew it if you don't constrain the proportions on photoshop, but you'll obviously lose quality. There's various ways to cheat and add to the image with a few photoshop skills, or like I said before, you can leave blank space on the edges (and you can choose which edge) depending on your reasons for doing so.

And of course, you can choose where to crop in photoshop. You can either use the crop tool on the main toolbar, or: Images > Canvas Size ...then reduce it to what you want. This will crop it and you can choose which edges to cut down with specific image sizes. Hope that makes sense.

confucious · Oct 28, 2007

Hey Grimshaw - thanks for your replies!

I tried what you said in Photoshop but am unclear if it accomplishes what I want to do. It seemed to degrade the image but not change the actual proportions.

I am not attempting to "skew" the image at all, just to prepare for print at a shop so that THEY don't do the cropping necessary for the image size. What I find is, as my camera is a 3:2, when I get a 5" x 7" or an 8" x 10" print they crop so that one of the sides is always severely altered and I lose my image balance completely.

Right now I have frames that are 4" x 6", 5" x 7", and 8" x 10" - the last two require that I reconfigure the size of my images. This can be done, like you said, by adding a white border or cropping.

My problem is, I do not know how to crop an image so that when I bring it to the printer it is perfectly sized already for the desired print size I want. I would love a program where I can say - this photo should be 5 x 7, it gives me a "crop box" that I can move around until the composition is how I want, and then I crop and bring to the printers. This way I am never surprised by how they have changed the ratios on my pics.

Sorry for the long post - am I making sense?? And does Photoshop do what I am asking but I am just being dense? Like I said, I played with what you said but couldn't see how it would do what I was trying to do.

THanks in advance!

ricepudding · Oct 28, 2007

I kind of had the same question in another thread and haven't received an answer yet. I know in my very simple free program that came with my camera there is an option when I hit "crop" to CONSTRAIN the dimensions. So I just hit the 8 x 10 landscape or portrait button and it lets me do exactly what you are saying, move the box around the get the cut I want. I'm a bit frustrated by this though because I want the image cropped to what I want in and out and still keep its size and it is hard to do so without really distorting the image quality I think.........! So I'm still trying to figure it all out. I'm sure photoshop must do it if my generic program does it. It is just a matter of finding out how.

Good Luck.

EOS_JD · Oct 28, 2007

confucious said:
Hey all - just a quick question on sizing of my photos for different print sizes.

I use a Canon XTI which has an aspect ratio of 3:2 (if i am right...). My problem with this is that to get a print that is 5 x 7, 6 x 8, 8 x 10, I end up losing parts of the photo. I know this is necessary and unavoidable but I would like to be the one to controls exactly what I lose on bottom, top, right and left. Most of my photos are "balanced" and I want to maintain that. Is there anyway in Adobe Photoshop, or any other software, that I can do this myself?? Is there some program that you can choose specifically 5 x 7 with "Y" photo, move it around until desired and then save, burn to disc, bring and print??

Thanks tons for any help!!

In photoshop this is very simple.

Select the crop tool.

In the boxes at the top there's one for width and height. Enter 5 and 7 in each box (if it's the wrong way round hit the small icon in the middle of the two numbers to switch them around).

Now click and drag over your image and you can move the crop to suit the area you want to print. Press enter and that's it.

Although I now use Lightroom for most of my cropping, if I'm using photoshop this is what I do.

One last point though. You will also see a resolution box. Now I normally leave this blank but if you need to set it to a particular resolution (like a 7x5 @ 300ppi), just enter the required resolution in the resolution box.

Very quick and simple.

frXnz kafka · Oct 28, 2007

Assuming you have Photoshop, this is fairly simple. Select the crop tool, and in the "Width" and "Height" boxes type your dimensions. For a horizontal image to be printed at 5x7, punch "7 in" into the width box and "5 in" into the height box. Now go to crop the image. It will maintain the 5x7 proportion.

Woops, looks like EOS_JD beat me to the punch