Photo Lab Printing - Cropped Even More?

[Neuner]

I have a series of family portraits that I took & left 4x6. I wanted a 5x7 set of them, so I took them to the closest, best local place to have them sent off to their lab.

You have to submit digital pictures on their computer system and with it you can edit how they are going to crop your 4x6 to 5x7. When I picked up the photos they were croped 3-4mm more than what I designated ruining the opportunity of getting them framed without cutting off heads & appendages. One of the pictures even came back with the toes out of the picture when I cropped it to leave about 5 mm of space below her foot.

They are nice, willing to work with me, and will even refund my money, but I don't know if they are able to print it without cropping it even more. Before I go someplace else I would like to know if this is typical of lab printers or if they have an issue they need to resolve?

Thanks!
Neuner

 

[don farquhar]

It is because of cropping ratio. A 4x6 does not have the same ratio that a 5x7 does, it will cut off a portion of the longest side.
Take any image and crop it to a 4x6 yourself, now with that image now crop it to a 5x7 and you will see the difference between the two crops and it's ratio to each other.

 

[Neuner]

Yes, I know this and stated it in my post,

You have to submit digital pictures on their computer system and with it you can edit how they are going to crop your 4x6 to 5x7. When I picked up the photos they were croped 3-4mm more than what I designated

So as I said, I'm using their computer system to crop the 4x6 to 5x7. The problem is that it's cropped Even More than what I set the parameters at.

 

[Big Mike]

It's fairly typical for printers to slightly enlarge an image, past it's paper size, just to ensure that they get a full edge bleed (no white space on the edges). You could try having them reprint them for you, you could try cropping them again, you could try a different lab.

Personally, I try to never leave anything up to the lab or it's computer. If I want 5x7 prints, I crop to that ratio and save a copy. If I'm printing the same image at 4x6, I'll save another copy at that ratio etc. I do all this at home and just bring or send the files that are the correct size for the prints I want.

 

[danalec99]

I'd use Mpix.com.
They show you the crop preview and they don't mess with your selection.

 

[Neuner]

It's fairly typical for printers to slightly enlarge an image, past it's paper size, just to ensure that they get a full edge bleed

Personally, I try to never leave anything up to the lab or it's computer. If I want 5x7 prints, I crop to that ratio and save a copy.

I've tried cropping at home to the appropriate size and having them print but it turns out the same. Again, it's like you said that they slightly enlarge an image past it's paper size for full edge bleed. I was just wondering if All labs typically do this.

They do provide the option of 'shrinking the photo to pit the paper' keeping the same ratio. Since they are willing to work with me, I think I will try this option.

 

[Sideburns]

Get them to print with a white border? I know lots of places will do that, and that way you know that you aren't gonna get it cropped off...

That work?