Printing photos

[M-O-S]

On the point, you have your own pictures taken right, so and you want them to be printed, therefore do you really have to change the original image size? For example, you wish them to be printed at like 4x6 and you do so to change/crop the image to 4x6 in photoshop? Or, can you just leave the original image and send it to service and print it? Which one would you recommend?

Thanks.

 

[DSLR noob]

Don't resize it. Try to keep it at the highest DPI (the standard one off the memory card) then send it in. Requesting a 4x6, their printer will resize it as long as it is the right ratio (2:3) and it will preserve all the details that would be lost with digital compressing and, depending on the printing company, a good high DPI printer will print these preserved details..

 

[M-O-S]

Thank you, sir

I, of course do believe in high DPI and in addition I just hope their printer won't **** it all up.

I have to say though, that I've resized and saved in high dpi (like 300) before and the photos came out clean, high quality. Maybe I'll try without modifying the picture this time.

 

[Garbz]

All the labs here print 3:2 and will CROP the photo. If I want to print off my sisters camera and do it at the lab I will adjust the canvas size to 3:2 by padding the left side with white to prevent cropping.

Well I would shoot with cropping in mind, but they are my sister's images afterall.

 

[schumionbike]

It depend on what format your camera shoot. My camera shoot in a 4:3 format so when printing a 4x6 which is 3:2 format, it will resize. I usually crop the picture to give it a 3:2 ratio while still keeping as much of the image of possible. Now, when you printing an 8x10, the ratio now is 5:4, so the image will have to be crop differently to fit that ratio.

For example if my camera produce an image that is equal to 6x8 (4:3 format). If you take 4/3, that will give you a ratio of 1.33. If you're printing a 4X6, it have a ratio of 1.5 (6/4). If you take 6 and divided by 1.33 ( the camera ratio) you would realize that you would need 4.5 inches to print out your image as is on the camera. That's another .5 inch that's not available on the paper so that half an inch will be crop. You just have to decide how. So back to the original image of 6x8 that is produce by the camera, I would take 8/1.5 which give me 5.33 for a height in the camera which would give me the same 3:2 ratio for printing. And and 5x7, 8x10, 11x14 all have different ratio to work with. I hope this make sense, it's confusing I know. One time I crop my picture to 2x6 on the computer, I was able to print out a 5x15 exactly how it is on the computer since both have the same ratio of 3:1.

 

[M-O-S]

How do I make sure and know that they won't steal images or touch the images, you know?

 

[MACollum]

How do I make sure and know that they won't steal images or touch the images, you know?

The simple answer: you don't. If you print at a discount chain (Walmart, Walgreens, or other local store) they may not even be into photography or not care about your prints in general, it's just their job. On the other hand, the people you deal with at a pro printer will be professionals. Taking or changing someone's print (or file) without permission is illegal and IMO, not worth the trouble. For what? A picture someone else took in the first place? No fun in that.

I'd be much more inclined to worry about my pictures being stolen online, than at the printer's.

 

[Alpha]

Cropping depends on what kind of printer they're printing on. At a pro-lab, it's going to be a laser photo printer, such as a light jet or a noritsu, which can print any size.

At a drug store or target or something, they're usually printing on a dye-sub, so they'll crop to available paper sizes.

Unless you're printing on an inkjet, which few people do except for extreme enlargements (giclee prints), your image will be printed at 300dpi. If you want to make sure nobody screws it up, give them a cd with images that have been sized to the final print size that you want, and have been resampled to 300dpi already.