warning! a bit of a vent!

JimmyJaceyMom · Dec 22, 2006

This is making me so mad! What is the point to buying this freaking camera and learning how to take good pictures if I can't even print them the way I want to!!! I have tried what everyone told me in the last thread I made about this but I am just stupid or something cause it doesn't work!!!! I figured out how to get the right size but then it's all stretched out or something. This sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok I'm better now

D-50 · Dec 22, 2006

If you want to print 8x10 or five by seven you need to take your original image and crop it so the ratio equals that of the 8x10 or 5x7. For example your camera shoots in 2:3 and an 8x10 photo has a ratio of 4:5 My Nikon images come out in original form at 6.66 x 10 ( a 2:3 image ratio). To print this as an 8x10 I need to increase file image size to 8 inches wide, which will make its height 12 inches tall following the original 2:3 ratio of my image, then I take this new 8 x 12 image and crop two inches off the height to make it and 8x10 then it can be printed as a 8 x10. You cannot pint an image taken in a 2:3 aspect ratio as picture with a 4:5 aspect ratio without skewing and distorting the photo. You have to resize forst and then crop and your final print will be what you have on your screen, not necessarily what you shot on your camera though.

JimmyJaceyMom · Dec 22, 2006

calmom · Dec 23, 2006

JJMom, I don't understand the technicality of this but I'll tell you what I'm doing. I have a nice picture of my sister's cat that I blew up just today for her to an 8x12. I went to a local store to have my first large print done so I could understand what's involved.

She explained to me the problem you're having- that you either have to crop it or go with an odd size. She assured me I won't have a terrible time getting the right frame to fit it. Well, since this is a christmas gift for my sister, I'm going tomorrow to buy an 11x14 and will fill up the extra space with matting (sp?). I know, it's not my first choice either but it's the price I'm willing to pay for the ease of digital pictures!

The_Traveler · Dec 23, 2006

You might consider adding canvas around your picture until it comes to a standard size, then printing and framing that.

Here, for example, is a 4x5 print with canvas added to fit in a 5 x 7 frame.
That is the easiest and least expensive way to fit an off-size image to a standard size frame.

table1349 · Dec 23, 2006

Check out a program called Thumbs Plus from Cerious Software. It is another of the endless number of photo cataloging/viewing programs. It however has a nifty little feature that might just help you. In view mode you can select what ever standard picture size you want, 4X6, 5X7, 8X10 etc and crop the photo to those standard deminsions. You can create you own dimesions if you are doing something like 13X19. It allows you to expand or shrink the crop box while maintaining the preselected dimension. Just select the dimension you want, crop and print it on the same size paper. I get bordeless prints that are just what I want all the time.

Iron Flatline · Dec 23, 2006

I know all the math described above can seem a little non-creative. Unfortunately, the situation is no different now than it was years ago when we all used to drop our rolls of film off at the print place. Back then you would tell the counter jockey that you wanted a set of 4x6 and a set of 5x7. Well, he would feed the negs into a machine, tell it what out-put size to print the pictures on, and the machine would simply leave out the edges of the image that did not fit on the paper. In that sense it was cropping.

Mole · Dec 23, 2006

I don't have to do an of that confusing stuff. I have an HP program called HP photo printing where all you do is pick the size you want (5x7, 8x10) and then click and drag your photo into it. If you do want a real small size like wallet size, then the pic will be cropped, but you get to move the pic around in the frame so you choose what part of the pic you loose. You can resize the pic but everytime you do that you loose quality, so I try never to resize unless its a last resort. Im not a pro at this by no means, this is just what has been working for me.

The_Traveler · Dec 23, 2006

You can resize the pic but everytime you do that you loose quality, so I try never to resize unless its a last resort.

Every time you open a jpeg, edit it and resave, you lose quality. That is why once you open a jpg direct from the camera, you should save it as a tiff or psd and then work from that.

The way to resize without losing quality is to go back to the original or the tiff, downsize to the final size you want and then resharpen.

:blushing:

calmom · Dec 23, 2006

JJMommy, I thought of you today when I went to the frame store. It was very simple to take in my 8x12, buy matting to fill in the extra space and then use 12x16 frame. They also had 8x12 frames so it really was simple.

The Traveller, can I ask you? When I open my pictures in the Gimp, I save them as .xcf and only save as .jpg when I completely done editing. Is this what you mean? And what do you mean by resharpen? When it's being saved as .jpg in the very end, you do a final sharpen and that's it?

The_Traveler · Dec 24, 2006

calmom said:
When I open my pictures in the Gimp, I save them as .xcf and only save as .jpg when I completely done editing. Is this what you mean? And what do you mean by resharpen? When it's being saved as .jpg in the very end, you do a final sharpen and that's it?

My usual workflow, if I dignify my disorganized stroll through a picture by calling it a workflow, is first to do everything to the image to 'correct' it, then do whatever kinds of sharpening I want at the very end. Sometimes I sharpen specific layers or areas, before I flatten all the layers and save a printable version as a jpg but I usually flatten first and then sharpen.

If I resize for posting on the web, I try to do it from the original psd and then sharpen after resizing.

There are lots of different kinds of sharpening, not to mention that it can be done in specific areas only, so sharpening is an art in itself, justing like masking and just about evry damn thing in PS. (I have been working hard at PS for 2 years and am nowhere near accomplished in it compared ot the real pros.)

calmom · Dec 25, 2006

thank you!

JimmyJaceyMom · Dec 25, 2006

Thanks guys! I am going to take a noncredit course at my local community college in the spring so I can get a better idea of this stuff. In the meantime I think I will stick with not cropping off as much as I want to and let snapfish take off the parts I don't care about. sheesh! Nothing is easy huh?