Cropping Photos for Printing

[Noob7_0]

Im knew to the whole "post production" thing. I want to get some my of my shots printed to 4x6s, which is fairly straight forward, but I was hoping to crop a number of them (if it matters I was going to have them developed at Walmart). Im not entirely sure how to crop them yet still maintain the ratio for a 4x6s print. I have CS2 and Lightroom (with no formal training what so ever in either program). Would anyone be able to give me some tips or point me to a website?

And a slightly related question....what would happen if you had a pic that was cropped to be really wide and narrow. If you had it printed would you get a letter box effect or would the pic be streched to match the print size.

Thanks

 

[dklod]

Im knew to the whole "post production" thing. I want to get some my of my shots printed to 4x6s, which is fairly straight forward, but I was hoping to crop a number of them (if it matters I was going to have them developed at Walmart). Im not entirely sure how to crop them yet still maintain the ratio for a 4x6s print. I have CS2 and Lightroom (with no formal training what so ever in either program). Would anyone be able to give me some tips or point me to a website?

And a slightly related question....what would happen if you had a pic that was cropped to be really wide and narrow. If you had it printed would you get a letter box effect or would the pic be streched to match the print size.

Thanks

I use a couple of different programs each for a different purpose. For cropping, I use FastStone. It has programable cropping and preset cropping as well so you can pick your 3:2, select your first corner and when you drag your window remains at the same ratio. Other programs probably work the same, but this is the best I know of for this purpose.

 

[bigalbest]

The crop tool in CS2 has a drop down menu (along the top of the screen) with specific sizes including 4x6. Next to that are a couple windows where you can type in any other size you want. Usually if you send a panorama style crop to wallgreens and say ask for it to be printed 4x6 they will format it to fit leaving blank space above and below the photo.

 

[maytay20]

I crop with the printers tools. If you crop then send to a printer you might get them cropped again and have chopped off heads etc. (Walmart is bad at doing this)

 

[clarbin]

If you crop then send to a printer you might get them cropped again and have chopped off heads etc. (Walmart is bad at doing this)

Costco does the same thing.

"Off with their heads!" At least the tops of them anyway.

 

[reg]

I crop with the printers tools. If you crop then send to a printer you might get them cropped again and have chopped off heads etc. (Walmart is bad at doing this)

Walmart is bad at doing everything.

 

[Sandspur]

You have CS2 - use it. Use the crop tool, choose the preset size you want, and crop it.

Just be sure you're also specifying the resolution. (should be 300 dpi in most cases)

I have a tutorial page about adjusting for print size here: It explains a lot about the nuts and bolts of cropping to fit.

http://www.jimsdigitaldiary.com/8x10.html

People who complain that this or that store chops of heads or otherwise crops their pictures badly usually haven't given the printer properly setup file.

You can't blame the store when you didn't do the job correctly in the first place.